Design and Fabrication of A Spiral Tube Water Wheel Pump
Design and Fabrication of A Spiral Tube Water Wheel Pump
Design and Fabrication of A Spiral Tube Water Wheel Pump
introduction
1
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Water is used in almost anything and everything we do. From household activities to
industries or irrigation, abundant water supply is favorable. Since assam is an agricultural state,
and abundant water supply for this purpose is a must. Water is pumped to the agricultural field
using various pumps using electricity and other fuels ,but this fuels are not in abundance and
therefore makes it a costly affair.
An alternative solution to this problem could be a simple water wheel. The water wheel
rotates with the energy of flowing water and thus omits the use of any kind of fuel. A water
wheel consists of a large wheel basically made of wood or metal, and it consists of a number of
blades or buckets arranged on the outer rim forming the driving surface. Water wheels have been
used basically for agricultural purpose, lifting of water to a greater height since ancient times.
Use of water wheels has been found since ancient times like that in Hama, Syria. Flowing
water was used to turn the wheel and water held in buckets on the rim was lifted to great heights
to spill over into channels which irrigated the land further away. These wheels were often built to
huge proportions, because water was raised on their rims. Although the exact date is not known,
the concept of water wheel is assumed to be developed in the early 4000 bc in Greece.
2
1.1 Types of Water Wheel
3
The overshot water wheel directs water onto the wheel to turn in the same direction
without changing its direction. They are usually used on falls of over ten feet. The water is
conveyed to the top of the wheel by a wooden trough or sluice box and fed into the buckets. The
water from the sluice box and the chute let the water into the buckets of the wheel from the
control gate. The buckets are formed by boards set at an angle toward the stream and the ends or
sides of the boards are set into slots in the sides of the wheel. The bottom edges of the front
bucket boards are fastened to the sole or drum formed by planks secured to the inside end of the
shrouds. The seams are often covered with batten to prevent leakage of water. This type of water
wheels is referred to as a bucket wheel. The power generated by an overshot water wheel
depends almost entirely on the weight of the water in the buckets, and the forward momentum of
the water as it enters the buckets adds slightly to the increment of the wheel's power. The water
wheel moves in the same direction of the stream. The wheel gets its benefit from the whole
initial velocity and impulse of the water. The advantage will be lost as the bottom of the wheel is
immersed in water and begins moving against the current. It is only possible for the wheel to turn
above the tail water. In the case of back watering, an overshot water wheel will obstruct and
impede its movement because air becomes trapped in the buckets as the water wheel is rotating.
The direction of that the overshot water wheel turns in back water tends to draw floating debris
into the water wheel and do damage to it. Another great problem with overshot water wheels is
that often the water is directed from the chute onto the wheel too far forward of the vertical
center of the water wheel and too much water flies over the wheel and never enters the buckets.
The end of the water box and the end of the chute attached to it should be just behind the vertical
center so when the water enters the wheel it is just behind the vertical center. In this way the
wheel takes full advantage of the water and the fall available. The general rule for building an
over shot water wheel is to allow a foot above and a foot below the wheel subtracted from the
available fall.
In many cases the breast shot water wheels and undershot water wheels are of larger
diameter than the overshot and pitch-back water wheels. In the ordinary breast shot water wheel
the water comes into the water wheel about at the center axis point. In some of the high breast
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shot water wheels, the water is applied to the upward top of the water wheel. The weight of the
water multiplied by the height of decent and not by just its impulse yields effective power. This
type of water wheel has its lower upstream side or quarter encased by an arch or apron. It is
made to fit closely to the rim of the water wheel to prevent the loss of water from moving under
the wheel and thus keeping more water in the buckets keeping the water wheel more efficient.
5
1.1.3 Undershot water wheel
The undershot water wheel is used on falls with very low head, where there may be only
a slight fall to a stream. The wheels are found usually with less than 4 feet or with no head at all.
These water wheels are moved entirely by the impulse of the water and consequently required
much greater quantities of water to produce the same power as developed by the overshot, pitch-
back and breast shot water wheels.
They are mainly found on tidal mills and boat or floating mills. The simple form of the
water wheel is that of a paddle wheel. They may only be placed were they dip into the current
and relay mainly on the movement of the water than by any fall. The weight of the water is not
applied. The undershot water wheels usually have no sole or shrouding. Of the three types of
vertical water wheels, the undershot is the least efficient and the power developed being
comparatively small to that of the size of the wheel and the amount of water that moves it.
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1.2 Disadvantages of Water Wheel
From the literature survey we could easily conclude that although the use of a
waterwheel has omitted the use of fuel and is therefore a cheaper device, but it also has certain
limitations. The various disadvantages of the water wheel has been stated below.
The primary disadvantage of the water wheel is that the water could be lifted
only upto the height of the diameter of the waterwheel, which clearly indicates that either
the water cannot be lifted above the height of the water wheel or else, the other option is
that the diameter of the waterwheel is to be increased which in turn will increase the
expenditure.
It has been observed that water could be discharged only upto a particular fixed
point or else a drainage system will be required to transfer the water up to the required
level or point which will in turn increase the expenditure.
In order to overcome these difficulties, a spiral tube is added as an lifting device in place
of water lifting buckets of the water wheel.
A spiral pump is basically used to pump water from a lower head to a higher head region.
This pump uses a rotating pipe coil to pump water. Spiral pump is considered to be created in
1746 by H.A. Wirtz, of Switzerland. Wirtz invented the spiral pump to provide water to a higher
head.
The spiral tubes are fixed to the wheel so that the spiral pipes rotate, as the wheel itself
rotates. The water collector connected to the outermost end of the spiral tube gulps in a good
quantity of water and delivers this into the spiral tube as it rises above. This core of water passes
through the spiral followed by a core of air as the wheel rotates. A new core of water is formed
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on every revolution, and a new core of air. Thus a series of cores of water and air are formed
within each spiral pipe as the wheel rotates. Both spiral tubes deliver their water and air into the
axle of the wheel and there it is led off through a water seal to a static rising pipe, which delivers
water to the header tank. As the wheel revolves a pressure head develops within each coil of the
spiral tube, water in the rising coils being higher than in the descending coils. These cores of
water in the spiral tube compress the air between them as they travel around the spirals and both
water and air are expelled under pressure into the axle. The flow of water up the static rising pipe
is also accelerated by the compressed air escaping and expanding from the outlet at the axle of
the wheel. This effect also helps to lift water to the header tank. Fig 1.5 shows a spiral water
wheel.
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1.6 PROBLEM DEFINITION
Our main objective was to design a spiral tube water wheel pump where a head up to 20
ft. can be obtained. In the current project, a spiral tube water wheel pump, of a 3 meter diameter
water wheel and a 1.5 meter diameter spiral tubeis designed and fabricated on the bank of the
Bhogdoi River to pump water to the nearby areas to obtain the head of 20 ft.
1.8: Important Parameters related to Spiral Tube Water Wheel Pump performance:
River flow
Size of blade
Number of blade
Diameter of the wheel
Diameter and number of the coils
Submergence of the coils
River flow: The speed of the water is directly proportional to the rotational speed of the water
wheel[].
Size of the blade: The size of the plate is directly proportional to the force exerted on blade
keeping velocity constant.
Number of blade: More the no of blade more is the force experienced by the wheel up to a
certain limit but decreases after that.
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Diameter of wheel: Larger the diameter of wheel, greater the head generated.
Submerge ratio: As submerged ratio increases discharge increases but has negligible effect on
head.
1.8: Objective
In the present work, it is proposed to design and fabricate a spiral tube water wheel pump of
3 meter diameter water wheel and a 1.5 meter spiral tube water wheel is designed and fabricated
which could obtain a head of 20 ft. It is specially designed for the river Bhogdoi as the velocity of
Bhogdoi is 0.8 m/sec and analytically the designs were made for 0.6m/sec velocity. The work done
is detailed below .
PHASE 1:
(Completed at the end of 7th semester)
Literature review and data collection.
Site selection
Design calculations.
Partial Fabrication.
.
PHASE 2:
Performance evaluation by calculating discharge and the height up to which the water is
lifted.
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Chapter 2
Literature Review
11
LITERATURE REVIEW
Study of various types of Water Wheel used in different parts of the world was studied
with the help of various technical papers. On study of the technical papers, various design
dimensions were studied and analytical power, head and velocity was obtained. The literature
describing the above findings are discussed in Table 2.1 below:
Sl Authors
Title Journal Findings
No. Name
1 Peter Spiral tube Blair *Blair Research Laboratory built a water
Morgan., water research wheel pump wheel ranging in size from
et al. wheel bulletin .5 m in diameter to 4 m diameter.
(1984) pump According to their reading, the pump (4
m wheel) pumped 3679 liters of water
per hour to a height of 8m above the
canal. At the canal the velocity of the
water flow was 1 m/s. The pump
consists of 16 paddles and 3 coils of 50
mm diameter. The wheel performed 3.21
revs per minute whilst pumping water to
8m. The height of which water can be
pump depends on no of coils in the spiral
tube. In the rotating joint of the pump he
used neoprene seal.
2 By Peter The Spiral http://lurkert *A wheel with 160 feet of 1-1/4 inch
Tailer. et Pump: A ech.com/wat inside diameter flexible polyethylene
al. (2005) High Lift, er/pump/tail pipe is able to pump 3,900 gallons of
Slow er 1986 water per day to a 40 foot head with a
Turning peripheral speed of 3 feet per second.
Pump
*This easily built, low maintenance
spiral pump can be used to provide water
without the need for fuel wherever there
is a flowing stream or river. It can also
be hand turned or otherwise driven to
provide a low cost, efficient pump 6 foot
diameter
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3 Lance Using British * studied about a coil pump or sling
Brown., et Stream Columbia , pump. The Sling Pump has 32mm
al. (2006) Energy To Ministry of polyethylene pipe for the internal coil.
Pump Agriculture According to him, it will pump 15,000
Livestock and Lands liters per day up 6.1m. The sling pump
Water requires specific conditions are the pump
must be half submerged, 400 mm
minimum water depth, a water velocity
of 0.6 m/sec
4 Kimberley Spiral tube Sigma Pi * studied about spiral water pump, first
Barnes.et water Sigma one coil model, after that two coil model.
al. (2011) wheel Undergradua They developed a equation to determine
te Research the pressure. In the study of single coil
Award Final model, they compared the theoretical
Report., et lengths and experimental lengths of the
al. (2011) coil and the maximum difference is
.03m.
5 Phillip L. Coil Pump International *designed a water wheel and coil pump
Thompson. Design for Journal for at Zambia river to provide 30 liters of
el al.(2011) a Service water per minute to a safe gathering area
Communit Learning in 30 meters on shore and at an elevation of
y Fountain Engineering 10 meters above the river
in Zambia Vol. 6, No.
1, Spring
2011
13
Chapter 3
Design CALCULATIONS
14
DESIGN CALCULATIONS
To design the Spiral Tube Water Wheel, various parameters had to be considered.
The primary consideration was the velocity of the Bhogdoi river which is followed by the other
analytical calculations. The various design calculations required in the design, starting from the
field study to measure the water velocity to the analytical design has been discussed below.
1 1 1.24 0.806
2 1 1.37 .83
4 1 1.40 .71
5 1 1.30 .77
The velocity was found to be 0.8 m/sec during summer i.e. during the rainy season and an
average of 0.6 m/sec is considered as the average rainfall tends to change in different seasons.
15
After selection of the site, the depth of the river water was measured. The dimensions of
the blade was considered with reference to the depth of the river which was found to be 1.30
meter.
Sl no Depth(m) Average(m)
1 1.25
2 1.18
1.30
3 1.36
4 1.38
Water wheel is one of the primary parts of the project; it uses the energy of the flowing water to
some useful energy. The main parts of the water wheel are
i. Spoke
ii. Blade
iii. Shaft
Spoke: It is a long bar connecting the center of the wheel and it supports the frame of the blade.
The main function of spoke in water wheel is to support.
Blade: It is a flat surface attached at the tip of the spoke of water wheel. The force exerted by the
water on the flat plate makes the water wheel to rotate.
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Shaft: It acts as a supporting and revolving device of water wheel. The rotational speed of the
water wheel is transferred to the spiral tube wheel by gear mechanism through the shaft.
To design waterwheel and the parameter related to it, first we assume the power input by
water wheel is 30 watt. Assuming the radius of wheel (R) = 1.5 m by referring the relation
More the number of blades, greater is the torque on the water wheel. But after a certain
number of blade, the torque decreases due to blockage of water by the subsequent blade.
Therefore the number of blades should be arranged in such a way that only one blade is fully
immersed at a time. Therefore the number of blades is found to be n1=8 By taking the overall
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view of above point, the angular distance between the spoke is found to be 45o.as shown in Fig .
3.1.
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3.3 Spiral Tube Water Wheel
The spiral tube water wheel is a modified form of water wheel where spiral tubes are
used instead of buckets. The spiral tube wheel is run by the gear mechanism, the water wheel
rotates due to the flow of the river water along with the help of blades which helps in running
the spiral tube wheel. The spiral tube is designed for a certain height and certain discharge and
has a diameter of 1.5m.The main parts of the spiral tube wheel are
Hollow Shaft
Spoke
Spiral Tube
Rotating Joint
Scoop
Hollow shaft: It acts as a supporting device and it helps in rotating the spiral wheel. Water
collected by the spiral tube is discharge at the outlet with help of hollow shaft,
Spiral tube: It is a long tube coiled eccentrically on the hollow shaft which collects water at each
rotation.
Scoop: Scoop is typically made from a larger diameter pipe and can be used to vary the amount
of water taken in with each revolution. The scoop should be approximately half the volume of
the outer coil and should be enclosed in wire mesh to prevent debris from entering the coils.
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3.3.1 Design of Spiral Pump
D=h1= wheel or outer coil diameter and the outer coil head
H=delivery head, n=no of coil, d=diameter of the pipe, hn=head in nth coil
P1= Patm+D
Pn= Patm+H
V1=π×(d/2)2×D
Vn=π×(d/2)2×hn
To find hn
P1V1=Pn Vn
To find n :
n×( D+hn ) / 2 = H
Therefore n = 2H / ( D+hn )
Note: The pipe diameter, d, cancels out in the above equations. Once the number of coils
required for a given wheel is determined to provide a given pressure or head, a suitable pipe size
can be selected to form the coils of the spiral pump. When designing a spiral pump, a 20%
20
margin should be added to the determined coil number. This margin will help account for
different pipe diameters and other variables[].
Fig 3.3 Design diagram of the spiral wheel (All dimensions are in meters).
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For a constant output of discharge and constant head generation by the spiral tube wheel,
the speed of the spiral wheel should be constant. As the velocity of river keeps varying, it affects
the overall speed of the wheel which ultimately affects the discharge output of the pump and
head generation. In order to overcome this practical difficulty, a special attachment (gearbox) is
introduced to have constant output and head.
The one end of the gear box is attached to the shaft of the main water wheel and the other
end is connected to the shaft of the spiral wheel. The driver gears are attached to the shaft of the
main wheel and driven gears are attached to the solid shaft which is connected to the shaft of the
spiral wheel with Chain drive.
Working of the gear box : Eight number of bicycles sprockets are taken as the gears in the
gearbox .In the driver end four number of gears are present and four gears are present in the
driven end which are called the ratchet wheels. The gears in the driven end are unidirectional.
Each pair of gears in the driver and driven side can be connected by chain drive. The pair with
the maximum rpm will be online and the other pairs will remain idle as the rpm of the shaft will
be more than the ratchet wheel.
Gear2 44 Gear2 17
Gear3 36 Gear3 21
22
Fig: 3.4 : Design diagram of the gear box
The spiral wheel hollow shaft which collects water from spiral tube continuously rotated
and it is not possible to rotate the whole delivery pipe. So there is a need of a joint between the
hollow shaft and the delivery pipe which can provide a frictionless surface to rotated the outlet of
the tube smoothly and air tight chamber to prevent leakage of water.
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Pic Image of the rotary joint used.
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3.6 The Raft
Generally every water wheel are installed in the river base a fixed position, i.e. the centre
of water wheel remain fixed from the water surface. So when water level increase or decrease the
submerge level of blade change which greatly affect the power input by the wheel . If water level
decrease to such point that blade of wheel may not in contact with water to receive it force and if
water level increase to a point maximum part of wheel may inside the water. So it is necessary to
maintain a position at which a required part of blade submerge in water, hence a raft is designed
over which water wheel is installed and which float over water by keeping the water wheel at its
favorable position, what over may be the level of water .
The raft designed in the project tendency to support maximum 300 kg .The raft consist of
wooden block. The dimension of raft is 14 ft. long and 11 ft. wide, 8 drums are used in the raft as
a floating object; each carries a capacity of 55 liters. These terms provides necessary buoyancy
force to keep the raft floating.
Calculation
= .44×1000 × 9.81
= 4316.4 N
= 300×9.81 N
=2943 N
25
Here the buoyancy force is greater than the weight of the whole system. So the whole
system will be float. The 3D design of the raft is shown in Fig . 3.6.
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Table 3.1 List Of Parts With Dimensions And Materials Used
27
FIG : 3.7 : DESIGN DIAGRAM OF THEASSAMBLED VIEWTHE SPIRAL TUBE
WATER WHEEL PUMP
28
Chapter 4
FABRICATION AND CONSTRUCTION
29
FABRICATION
After the design calculation was conducted in the previous chapter, the fabrication is
started which is described in the chapter
The water wheel consists of two flanges made of Mild Steel of 30 cm diameter with an
inner hole drilled to 2.54 cm which will be connected to a shaft. 8 spokes of Mild Steel are
welded together to the flanges at the centre from both sides .The spokes are of hollow mild steel
frame (2.54 cm).Flat bars of 2.54 cm length and 3 mm thickness are welded to the spokes in
between for support. Mild steel plates of dimension (.45X.6) m2 are welded to a frame by gas
welding to form the blades which are fitted to the spokes with nut and bolt.
Pic : 4.1,4.2,4.3,4.4 shows various fabrication processes.
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Pic 4.2 water wheel
31
Pic 4.3 Waterwheel constructed
32
Pic 4.4 Construction of blade
33
4.2 Spiral Wheel
The spiral wheel consists of two flanges made of Mild Steel of 20 cm diameter with an
inner hole drilled to 3.8cm which will be connected to the outlet pipe. 8 nos. of square hollow
bar of (2.54X 2.54) cm2 and 0.75 m long are welded to the flange from both sides to form the
spokes.
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4.3 Gearbox
For the construction of gearbox angular bar of size2.54 cm and thickness .3 cm are used.
The casing of the gear box has dimension on the water wheel end is (27x27x27) cm 3 and on the
spiral wheel end the dimension are (27x15x15) cm3 are welded. In the gear box a total of eight
gears are used, of which 4 drivers are attached to the water wheel shaft and other four are
attached to the shaft which is connected to spiral tube wheel. All the gears are welded by arc
welding and gas welding.
35
Pic: 4.8 Contruction of Gear Box shaft.
36
Pic 4.9 Image of the gearbox
37
Pic 4.10 Gearbox
38
4.4: Raft
A wooden frame of 14 ft. (4.2672 m) length and 11 ft. (3.3528m) breadth is constructed.
Eight numbers of drums are being fitted to it for buoyancy as mentioned in the design
calculations. This will act as the float and the spiral tube water wheel pump will be on the float.
39
Chapter 5
INSTALLATION
40
INSTALLATION
41
Pic 5.2 Installation in the bhogdoi river
42
Chapter 6
RESULT output
43
RESULT
On installation of the project on the Bhogdoi river, readings were taken after the project is
practically run in the river .The maximum height to which water is pumped successfully is
found to be 18 feet . By taking different height of the output ,other parameter’s are measured.
The rpm of both the wheel is measured by tachometer and it is found to be 2.4 rpm and 4.6 on
water wheel and spiral tube respectively during the load condition.
To measure the discharge rate, a procedure is followed to count the time required to fill a 2 litre
bucket at 18ft,9ft and at the shaft level and times are recorded as 24seconds,
14seconds,5seconds rspectively.
Table 6.1
From the above tabulated data discharge and work done are calculated as
=0.0779×10-3 m3/S
Work done(w1)=Q×h×ρ
44
= 0.0779×10-3×9×1000
=0.7011 watt
Therefore discharge(Q2)=2×10-3÷16
=0.125×10-3m3/s
Work done(W2)=Q×ρ×h
=0.125×10-3×3×1000
=0.375 watt
Therefore discharge(Q3)=2×10-3÷6.67
=0.299×10-3m3/s
Work done(W3)=Q×ρ×h
=o.299×10-3.×5 ×1000
=0.149watt
45
350
300
250
200
DISCHARGE IN ml
HEIGHT in meters
150
100
50
0
1 2 3
46
350
300
250
200
DISCHARGE IN ml
150
50
0
1 2 3
47
8
4 HEIGHT in meters
Work Done in Watt
0
1 2 3
48
Chapter 7
CONCLUSION AND SUMMARY
49
CONCLUSION
The project is designed for the Bhogdoi River and the possible data’s, calculations,
materials required for this project has been collected and the fabrication work has been
completed, which was then installed in the Bhogdoi River following which the discharge and the
head was being calculated and it was found that at a river velocity of 0.5m/sec a head of 18 ft is
achieved and water is discharged at an average rate of 70 ml in 25.6 seconds , the details of
which are presented in this report .The design calculation is done by considering the power input
to the water wheel as 30 watt and discharge head 20 ft.
It was found that, at delivery head 9meter,it takes 25.67 seconds to fill 2×10-3 m3 of water ,and discharge
is found to be 0.0779×10-3m3/s and the work done is 0.7011 watt , at a head of 3 meters, it takes 16
seconds to fill 2×10-3m3 of water and the discharge is 0.125×10-3m3/s and work done is 0.375 watt and at
a head of 0.5 meters, it takes 6.67 seconds to fill 2×10-3m3 of water and the discharge is 0.299×10-3m3/s
and work done is 0.149 watt
The effort of making a fuel free device to pump water upto 20 ft without use of fuel is partially
achieved . Although the calculated head could not be achieved,it is evident that with the increase in
river velocity, the head , discharge and work output will increase, as 20 ft head was being calculated for
a river water velocity of 0.8 m/sec whereas the present velocity of the Bhogdoi river is 0.5 m/sec
It was our first attempt to design and fabricate a working project, which could not have been possible
without the proper guidance of our respected guides, and respected teachers of the workshop of our
college. Utmost care was taken to decrease the cost of construction and make it a low budget device,
but due to unavailability of materials and proper equipment’s, the project expenditure was too high
which can be omitted in case of mass production of the device. Any other way to increase the cost of
production can be a scope of improvement in the project
50
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Report, 2011.
[3] Brown, L.; ‘Using Stream Energy To Pump Livestock Water’, Published at: Livestock
Watering Factsheet, BRITISH COLOUMBIA, Ministry of agricultre and Lands, order
no.590.305-8,january 2006.
[4] Mead, W.D.; ‘The Theory, Investigation and Development of Water Power.’, McGraw-Hill
Book Co.,1908
[5] Morgan, P.; ‘Blair Research Bulletin’, Blair Research Laboratory Ministry of Health,
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