Development of Economic Water Tower Systems Using Graphical Method

A water tower maintains a large quantity of water in a tank placed upon it, at a height that creates a sufficient pressure to maintain, in most of the time, an evenly supply and distribution of water through channels called pipes in industries and homes. The water towers are often associated with the supply of water from a deep well, borehole, dam, spring, stream or river with the aid of pumps, which are operated electrically, chemically or mechanically. Traditionally water towers construction exists in forms of square-, rectangular, triangular-, circular-, and even H-shapes. These changes in shapes are as a result of continuing efforts, in developing countries, in searching for the most economic construction of water towers. Presently, efforts are very scanty in the use of cross (+) - shaped tower which seems to be more economical in construction in term of materials and labour involved than the existing and common shapes. This innovation, apart from space utilization economy, it also provides aesthetically designed system. Cost reduction is evident in cross (+) − shaped tower while graphical and perimeter analyses were done on different shapes in existence based on the pre-determined dimensions. The results of the analyses showed that a cost reduction of about 50% is possible with crossshaped tower when compared with the worse cases of rectangular- and squareshaped. Therefore, cross (+) shaped towers become the most economical replacement for other existing towers in developing countries.