What Leonardo da Vinci machine used a large threaded screw to move water?

Leonardo da Vinci studied and redesigned Archimedes’ screw, a machine that moves water through a rotating helical surface.

The device consists of a screw-shaped blade inside a cylinder or trough. When the screw turns, water is carried upward along the spiral. Leonardo investigated screw pumps in his engineering notebooks and produced detailed studies of their geometry and possible uses.

The machine was not Leonardo’s original invention. It is traditionally attributed to Archimedes, who lived in the third century BCE, although the exact ancient history of the device is debated. Leonardo’s importance lies in his analysis and adaptation of the mechanism during the Renaissance.

An Archimedes’ screw can move water for irrigation, drainage, and wastewater treatment. It is different from a water wheel, which extracts energy from flowing water, and from a turbine, which converts fluid flow into rotary power. In the screw pump, rotation does work on the water.