Water Fountains

King Fahd’s Fountain is a water fountain located in the city Jeddah, Saudi Arabia named after the King Fahd.

 This is the tallest water fountain in the world, with water reaching an amazing height of about 1024 ft into the sky. Each one of the three massive pumps deliver 165 gallons of water per second. The water is propelled through 5 inch nozzles at an unbelievable speed of 233 mph. King Fahd’s Fountain, also known as Jeddah’s Fountain, is the worlds tallest water fountain. It dominates the skyline of the city of Jeddah, the capital of Saudi Arabia and is the wealthiest city in the Middle East, and western Asia today, which is located on the coast of the Red Sea.                                                      

The fountain was built in the earley 1980’s and it is listed in Guinness World Records as the highest water fountain in the world. This water fountain reaches of over one thousand feet into the sky. This salt water fountain was donated to the City of Jeddah by the late King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz.This water fountain is visible throughout the entire city of Jeddah. The water fountain consists of a single massive geyser of water shooting vertically into the air at an amazing speed of 233 miles per hour. On a nice calm day the water reaches a height of one thousand and twenty four feet, thats higher than Paris’ Eiffel Tower, that’s without the antenna. At any given moment, the water hanging in the air weighs in at a whopping eighteen tons or thirty six thousand pounds.

The first construction of the water fountain was developed between 1980 and 1983, after the style of Lake Geneva’s freshwater fountain, which reaches four hundred and sixty feet into the air at speeds of approximately one hundred and twenty four miles per hour. This magnitude scale was found to be very challenging for the planners. The fountain today began operating in 1985, and has been running without any meager difficulties for over twenty years. A comprehensive maintenance system includes daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, half-yearly and annual inspections and maintenance operations. Because Jeddah’s water fountain operates using sea water running at such unbelievable high speeds, corrosion and abrasion were key challenges to the builders, SETE Technical Services Latsis Group. The intakes for the pumps are in a special pit that is continually pumped dry and treated annually with anti-fouling paint that prevents growth of algae and marine life. The water is passed through a series of filter screens before it reaches the pumps, filtering out soil, sand, debris, and organic life. The pipes and pump systems are isometrically designed and made of special stainless steel. Water exits the pumps in a 350 meter high pressure output line constructed with steadily decreasing diameters towards the nozzles. The nozzles are constructed of a specially designed alloy which can withstand a constant pressure of forty two bar, thats a staggering 609 pounds per square inch.

 The are five hundred high intensity spotlights that illuminate the water fountain, which also had to be specially designed to withstand the constant beating of thousands of tons of water an hour falling from about a thousand feet above. The spotlights are mounted on specially made islands. A cathodic system was installed in 1987 to protect the pipelines from the corrosive effects of the falling seawater, consisting of fifty seven anodes and twenty nine reference electrodes at seventeen points along the amazing system. It took over two years of constant specially amazing development to arrive at the current successful design, which has resulted in not only a record-setting water fountain, but has brought about the first real development of specialized knowledge on high pressure seawater.