page_title: Pump
section_title: Roots-type pumps
hierarchical_section_title: Pump / Types / Positive-displacement pumps / Positive-displacement types / Various positive-displacement pumps / Roots-type pumps
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: De werking van een lobbenpomp geïlustreerd. Eigen werk.
context_page_description: A pump is a device that moves fluids, or sometimes slurries, by mechanical action, typically converted from electrical energy into Hydraulic energy. Pumps can be classified into three major groups according to the method they use to move the fluid: direct lift, displacement, and gravity pumps.
  Pumps operate by some mechanism, and consume energy to perform mechanical work moving the fluid. Pumps operate via many energy sources, including manual operation, electricity, engines, or wind power, and come in many sizes, from microscopic for use in medical applications, to large industrial pumps.
  Mechanical pumps serve in a wide range of applications such as pumping water from wells, aquarium filtering, pond filtering and aeration, in the car industry for water-cooling and fuel injection, in the energy industry for pumping oil and natural gas or for operating cooling towers and other components of heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems. In the medical industry, pumps are used for biochemical processes in developing and manufacturing medicine, and as artificial replacements for body parts, in particular the artificial heart and penile prosthesis.
context_section_description: Named after the Roots brothers who invented it, this lobe pump displaces the liquid trapped between two long helical rotors, each fitted into the other when perpendicular at 90°, rotating inside a triangular shaped sealing line configuration, both at the point of suction and at the point of discharge. This design produces a continuous flow with equal volume and no vortex. It can work at low pulsation rates, and offers gentle performance that some applications require.
  Applications include:
  High capacity industrial air compressors.
  Roots superchargers on internal combustion engines.
  A brand of civil defense siren, the Federal Signal Corporation's Thunderbolt.
caption: A Roots lobe pump