Earlier, we looked at key terms like pitch and thread of the screw. Archimedes applied the principle of screw to help farmers lift and move water from river to fields. Today, this screw is also used for movement of grains, slurry and other industrial products. Instead of water, we will use grain to understand its working. Screw is built from a card sheet and casing from a thick plastic sheet. How to build this screw we will see later.

Just like the movement of the steel ball we saw earlier, we will place a steel ball and rotate the screw, it comes up all the way. Let us add some grain to the glass bowl. As I rotate the screw, grain moves up. Empty space is taken up by grains in the container. This process continues. Screw is responsible for this movement.

Circles are cut from the card sheet and cut into rings. Paper pipe forms an axle around which each ring is glued incrementally. With every rotation, it carries a small amount of grains upward. This is the basic principle of archimedes screw. This A4 card sheet is wrapped around our paper screw, so that a sealed casing is formed. A small cut near one is made for grain to enter the enclosed screw.

Screw can be constructed with this large PVC pipe as well. It is cut in half for some part. Paper rings are wrapped around smaller PVC pipe to form a screw. Material exits the screw from this opening. If we place steel balls here, after some time, these will come out through the opening.

Let us move some grain with this screw.

Same screw design is used as well to lift water. I could not do it as this arrangement is not perfect and has lots of gaps through which water drains down easily.

I will have to think of some other method for lifting water.

In the last video, I wrongly mentioned this setup as an Archimedes screw. Actually it is a coil pump which looks similar to an Archimedes screw but works on different principle. I will discuss the coil pump in the next video.

Do try these variations to know more about archimedes screw.
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Thank You.

#archimedesscrew
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#waterscrew