Why Is the Pump Located at the End of the Reservoir System?

[ko_kidd]

Tank Problem -- Pump at the END?

I will try to post more relevant data if possible but my main issue is this:

I have a pump that receives water from a reservoir--so basically a gravity feed into an open-air tank.

The tank itself is supposed to feed into a pump (that is located at the very bottom of the tank horizontally extending from it).

I have never seen anything like this, it doesn't seem logical to have any sort of pump at the end of a reservoir when you could use a pump for just getting water into a tank and let gravity do the rest.

There is no mention of whether or not the pump is connected directly to the thing and/or feeds into another tank for the pump or if it just stops inside some sort of pump and just goes out to the town.

The paper literally says "The outflow of the tank is through a pump that pressurizes the distribution network throughout the town."

I think I can figure out most of the problem, but the way to calculate outflow is confounding me right now.

If it's a pump sucking out water, that's one thing--if it's just gravity feeding a pump, that's another thing.

 

[turbo]

Here are a couple of hints:

When you drive around to some very flat places, why do you see tall water towers?

What possible function could the pump serve?

 

[ko_kidd]

Okay.

From what I've read, the towers are so high so that you can get a lot of pressure in the line to drive the water out to people's houses.

And pumps are before those tanks, so that they can provide water at a definite pressure down the lines to peoples' houses and so that they can refill the towers so that the pump doesn't have to be huge.

HOWEVER, my problem is not that similar to this. I'll show you the diagram of my problem (what I was given):

 

[stewartcs]

What does the problem ask you to find exactly? The output (flowrate) of the tank to the pump possibly?