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Course M-3019

Pumps
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Professional Development Training Course for Registered Engineers

Pumps

Tape 1 Side 1 (01 track 1) This is tape one, side one, of a course entitled Pumps. It is dedicated to professional development training for registered engineers indicated, as I said, a three-hour course. We will during the progress of the tape discuss the varieties of pumps that are available, breaking them down into three sections: centrifugals, positive displacement, and specialty pumps. Ill try and follow the discussion of the pumps with a few comments on particular applications that hopefully will have some guidelines for uses, observation, and analysis of pump systems. My name is Ed Hardin. I am a registered professional engineer in the State of North Carolina. I have been practicing engineering for some 50 years and Ive had the privilege of being part of operating plants and the development, construction and startup of a variety of process systems, and, of course as could be expected, as a chemical engineer in working in the conditions in the United States today. Ive covered quite a variety of process systems and a variety of pump applications. The initial type of pump that well discuss is a centrifugal pump. I will discuss under this category several different aspects of the pumps and how theyre used and how they should be considered for applications. Ill discuss these as values of the pumps for the various varieties, certain concerns about their operations, and some comments, also, on the types of drivers that are used for the pumps. First item of discussion under Centrifugal Pumps is to definitely recognize that this is a real workhorse type piece of equipment for the chemical process industries and for industry, in general. There are very few things around that do not require pumps in one way or another. This, of course, even includes things like air conditioning systems where you could consider that the air is, in fact, pumped. We will not deal with fans and light pumping of that variety in this particular set of tapes, but everything else from water distribution for civic situations, waste control, transfer of materials for convenience as well as for operating use, and, of course, inprocess transfers all use pumps of a wide variety and type that well discuss. A key unit that is regularly used in almost all industries is the centrifugal pump. It is generally used where a fairly consistent flow is desired, where the flow is relatively large compared to a lot of other things around itsmaller flow pumps, quite often, are done with positive displacement units. Well discuss those a little bit later. Relatively large continuous and, again, the relatively large can cover anything from a few gallons a minute in some small situations, where maybe only five or ten gallons might be used as a total charge or a total operating section, to systems such as very large liquid processing plants that might have plants circulating loops that would run 15,000 to 20,000 gallons a minute, or transfer systems from storage and other types of containment areas that might go into several hundred thousand gallons a minute.

The first item to consider under the variety of centrifugal pumps to be discussed is the open impeller. This is the general definition of almost a basic pump that anyone thinks of as a centrifugal pump. It has a containing volute. It has an impeller placed in it. The impeller is connected to a shaft. There is a seal. There is an inlet and an outlet. Quite often there are a few other things that are involved. On the impeller itself, there are some vanes that create the movement of the fluid. This very simple pump is used for almost anything for pumping. Quite typically for water pumping and distribution, but many hydrocarbons, gasoline-pumping applications, oil and so on pumping applications. Its rudiments are that the eye of the impeller receives the liquid. The turning of the impeller itself causes the liquid to acquire an acceleration, which, as the acceleration is absorbed in the casing, is turned into a velocity at the casing edge. That velocity is generally directed around through an enlarging cross section volute until we finally arrive at the outlet of the pump casing. Now the liquid that came into the eye at relatively low pressure is at somewhat higher pressure and available for transfer from the pump itself on into the process. The pump design, the design of the impeller, the rotational rate of the impeller, the size of the inlet, the size of the volute, the size of the outlet are all factors that come into consideration in deciding to use this pump. The main purpose is to increase the pressure so that a liquid can be reliably transferred from one vessel, usually at the lower pressure to a higher-pressure vessel, or a vessel located in an elevated position. The second type is what is called the closed impeller. General characteristics of these pumps are very similar with the one exception that in the closed impeller pump, the casting for the impeller provides an inside and outside plate with the vanes contained between the plates. This is usually done in order to improve the efficiency of momentum transfer and generally used for relatively higher-pressure situations in order to be assured that all the material that comes into the eye goes directly to the volute and that there is relatively little circulation. In some cases, a centrifugal pump is used with a recessed impeller. This kind of pump would be used in places where some solids might be contained within the liquid that is being pumped. A typical application is a waste stream of one kind or another. Very frequently used in biological waste processing facilities in order to prevent any kinds of paper or other materials coming down the pipeline from blocking the pump. In all of these situations, the impeller may or may not have a leading eye ring that will help direct the flow into the impeller and help provide a little bit of stabilization for the impeller. Of course, on the shaft as it discharges out of the driving end of the pump casing, there will generally be bearings and a type of seal in order to be able to hold the liquid within the pump casing. The bearings are generally beyond the seal so that the seal does hold the liquid without having them touch or provide any possible effect on the bearings. One of the conditions that exist because of this arrangement is that the impeller itself is cantilevered beyond the bearings of the pump shaft. This generally requires that the bearings be a little bit heavier than one might normally expect for these conditions. Also, the alignment of

the pump and the seal housing with the bearing housing would be something of significance. Particularly where mechanical seals are being used because you certainly do not want an elliptical type operation of a mechanical seal. This will cause excessive wear of the seal itself and the seal rings and will ultimately lead to a loss of the sealing involved. This was certainly very true, also, for those pumps that used to have braided type packing that were installed and for any pumps that are like that today. Replacing braided packing in a pump is a rather time consuming and tedious operation. They were very valuable and very worthwhile methods for packing and protecting pumps in the initial situations, but, again, the alignment is very critical and, of course, anything beyond the last support bearing on the shaft that could affect the balance of the shaft or the balance of the impeller will be critical to the sealing, the impeller operation, and ultimately the bearing life. More recently a new variety of pump referred to as a disk pump has been used in many situations. This generally consists of several plates held together with small pins, shafts or cylindrical arrangements, near the edge of the disk where the fluid action and the acceleration is provided strictly by viscous contact of the liquid with the disk surface. Certainly some argument might be made that the little cylindrical connections at the far outside edge do something to improve the efficiency and acceleration of the liquids as they go to the outside, but these disks are generally used in areas where minimum sheer of the liquid is a prerequisite. They generally serve very well under these conditions. All of the above listed pumps, whether theyre open impeller, closed impeller, recessed or disk, can be provided in a variety of materials. Very typical for pumps are rubber linings or rubber coatings of one kind or another. Rubber has been found to be both a corrosion resistant material as well as a very convenient way to handle relatively abrasive slurries. The general understanding is that the material itself will rather adhere or dig into the surface of the rubber and ultimately become its own abrasion surface. Often, all of these pumps are made out of plastic. Sometimes they are made out of graphite, sometimes fiber reinforced plastics, and, of course, a whole variety of specialty metalseverything from basic steels through stainless steels, bronzes, ferrous alloys, and, of course, into some even more exotic materials. A key factor is there is a variety of adjustments or modifications that can be made to the pump itself, to the casing, to the impeller, to its method of support, and to its method of sealing so that a centrifugal pump can generally be found to be functional and effective in the majority of any transfer applications that are around. However, one criteria that does exist there is that the better efficiencies and better applications of the centrifugal pumps are those cases where the pump will run relatively continuously. Starting and stopping a centrifugal pump can be, depending on the size of the pump, a very energy intensive function so that once a pump is turned on, its long-term reliability, smooth operation, and efficiency of plant operation is best controlled by giving it a long service factor. A variety of sizes exist in all of these pumps. Very small centrifugal pumps, something considered very small today, might be something with 1/4-inch inlets and 1/8-inch outlets. Those were probably somewhat unheard of 20 or 25 years ago. Certainly some applications

today require those kinds of operating conditions, particularly something that might be small usage and might have to do with hydraulics. Pump sizes go very large from there. One plant that I had the privilege of assisting in regularly had 1,500 horsepower, 8,000 gallon a minute pumps, and it would be very easy to list in the neighborhood of 60 to 80 applications of that type of pump in that particular plant. I have been made aware that there are much larger pumps. One very interesting example that I noted a long time ago was a pump that had an 11- or 12-foot diameter inlet that fed into a centrifugal type pump and discharged something in the neighborhood of 130,000 to 150,000 gallons a minute, creating a total pressure difference of something less than 20 feet. This pump was used for removing rainwater from the City of New Orleans and there were a bank of these pumps that transferred the water from the collection bases and collection system of the city into Lake Pontchartrain in order to be able to keep New Orleans from being flooded. A variety of styles exist in the centrifugal pump, too. In everything that weve discussed here so far, weve generally looked at the idea of water coming into an inlet eye in the center of the impeller and discharging out a side point at the terminus of the volute expansion. There are quite a few systems where the impeller can be fed not only from one inlet side, but from two inlet sides to a center discharge and this is called a double volute system. Quite often, this was done through a single inlet connection that is spread in the casting to allow the liquid to feed along the shaft from either end of the impeller then move through the impeller and through a common central discharge, but its not unheard for a double volute casing to have two separate inlets that are then pumped with a variety of situations, such as a tee to split the incoming flow or allow the incoming flow to go in both directions. This type of pump, again, goes to the heart of the reason for using centrifugal pumps. You can get a better balance of application. You can put bearings on both ends of the shaft and improve the alignment and stability of the pump for holding up over time. Its generally used for those situations where consistent flows of relatively high rates of transfer are required. A very typical application would be something like a cooling tower water transfer where the pump sits there and runs on a continuous basis. It can be designed and developed for a very high efficiency and very high reliability because of the overall balance of the system. Another method of achieving improvements is variations on the basic centrifugal pumping system and that is a system of multiple impellers. Quite regularly, this is done in places where very high pressures are needed or where pumping must be done to great heights. A very typical application for something like is a very deep well, down-hole pump that might have anywhere from two to five or ten or sometimes even more impellers stacked one after the other. All providing their own additional input to the pressure of the system because each impeller on the system will provide about the same pressure increase as the one before it of the given size and the same given design. So, that if one pump might have the capability of 200 to 300 gallons a minute with an increase of 150 to 200 feet of head, if four or five impellers were put in series into the same volute casing, again, with some specialty designs, then the 200 to 300 gallons a minute could be pumped out of a given pump with four stages at four times the 150 to 250-foot head gain or a 600 to 800-foot head. This has very regularly been used for water recovery for

irrigation systems, for water recovery for feeding into municipal water systems, and, of course, Im sure that many of you out there have other cases where that can be brought in also. Of course, the other thing that we have alluded to in the discussion here is the idea of a wide range of operating rates. The one thing that is typical for a centrifugal pump is continuous operation of a given flow rate. My leading question was that the flow should be relatively large. So, the relative concept now comes in and something for a given system that is considered relatively large might be down in the quarter to half a gallon a minute range because this is something of a very, very expensive or very specialized material that needs to be added on a continuous basis to a flowing stream. As long as it can be done at a continuous flow, the little bit that would need to be added would be pumped regularly to a variety of applications. Again, there are other much larger systems, as we indicated before, that could go up into hundreds of thousands of gallons a minute. These generally might be water systems as was suggested. However, a variety of oil pipeline systems would use very large pumps like this on a continuous basis. Im sure that there are many places that we could follow pipelines along through the United States and find pumping stations with, again, very large pumps like this continually refreshing the pressure of the system in order to achieve transfer of everything from gasoline products to lubricating oils and heating oils all around through the United States. This, then in summary of the discussion of a wide range of operating rates, I tried to give you the examples that indicate that it may not need to be a very large volume. It may be a lot of material in relationship to the cost of the material or its potential application in a product. Therefore, a continuous, relatively constant pressure entry and transfer rate is something of interest. These are the kinds of things that centrifugal pumps do very well, particularly at their output point, their output flange. This now brings in the discussion of several concerns that we must have about dealing with centrifugal pumps. One of the principal concerns in working with a centrifugal pump is that it will generally operate in either directionin the desired direction, which is the most efficient, or it will very easily turn in the reverse direction. In the forward direction, of course, we have pump curves that give pretty good indication of what the flow and head capacities are for the pumps. Generally these curves give you a reasonable operating range over which to work and use the pump. Of course, a selection of the impeller and the speed of the pump gets you into a given pressure range. One of the things that gets very deceptive is that if an impeller is running in the reverse direction, it quite often will generate almost exactly the same head under a no flow condition, but if the flow is increased or requested in a large increased capacity, then the pressure available will drop off very dramatically. This is one of the very serious situations it comes into when there are multiple pumps in parallel pumping a given system. If for some reason one of the pumps happens to be arranged so that it turns in the reverse direction, usually a change in wiring of controls of one kind or another, often the pumps operating in the normal condition will very rapidly run up to their capacity and then drop off in capacity. Still the system can show a relatively decent head, but not have sufficient flow.

Of course, the other condition can occur where there may be two pumps running in parallelone in the proper direction and one in the reverse directionat startup. The pressure will be fine, but very quickly its noted that there is no flow. The pressures drop off very dramatically and then it comes back to the question of doing a little investigation and being sure that the pumps are turning in the right direction. Ive included with the tapes here copies of pump curves out of several publications that indicate the general conditions that will be affected by the pumps when operating in these ways. Of course, an allied concern with the pump running in either direction is that they will in fact pump in either direction. Therefore, it can sometimes be deceptive that you seem to be getting flow, but youre not really getting it at the right pressure or volume rates and this, then, can lead to longer diagnostic times and analyses. Quite often some other blockage is anticipated in the linea valve malfunction. Definitely the operating direction of the pump should be one of the first things checked when a pumping condition does not meet the expectations. Again, hopefully the curves that are shown here give you a little better idea of the difference in performance that you can expect under the two different conditions of operating the proper direction or in a reverse direction. One of the other concerns that is very significant with a centrifugal pump is the fact that we can reach a condition at the inlet to the pump that is referred to as cavitation. This can occur for a couple of reasons. The most typical reason is an improper NPSH sizing. Ill not go into the details of doing any of that right now, but net positive suction head is very important. It is always discussed very thoroughly by pump manufacturers and representatives. Of course, there are always indications of the required heads coming in. The second condition that can exist is if there is some minor blockage in an inlet line. The conditions can indicate that there should be sufficient NPSH at the pump eye, but the blockage will tend to limit this. Under either condition, whether there is insufficient designed pump head or there is some slight blockage in one way or another, at the eye of the impeller, we can get what is called cavitation. Cavitation is, in fact, the boiling of the pumped liquid due to low pressure and then the later collapse. This boiling and collapse will cause quite a bit of vibration. It will cause generally some significant erosion and wear at the impeller inlet because of the severe collapse that can occur there. Generally, it will very quickly lead to the destruction of the impeller and quite often some significant mechanical damage to the pump. It can also lead without too much difficulty to a condition that we generally refer to as vapor bind. This is a condition where there is a status where there will occur boiling at the inlet to the pump and it is more vapor than can be recondensed by the flow of liquid thats available or the pump conditions that are in there. At which case, the impeller begins to spins strictly within the vapor and do very little pumping. A typical situation on that would be some blockage at the inlet that would limit the flow, allow the boiling to occur. Another condition would be a very low flow that will allow the mechanical energy of the pump to continue to be absorbed by the liquid in which case it would begin to boil the liquid in the pumping cavity. Under those conditions, you see a significant drop off in the flow rate of the pump, but quite often a still rather continuous, rather typical indication of output pressure because of the physics of the fluid

dynamics at the tip of the impeller will still maintain the pressure in the system if there is little flow and if there is some back pressure working on it. Centrifugal pumps will also operate at conditions that can lead to their own destruction. Weve discussed one of thesethats cavitation. Weve alluded to another onethats the low flow in which case quite often the fluids are overheated and boiled. This can lead or augment cavitation, which, again, can create significant problems of temperature and pressure within the pump. Certainly one of the conditions that needs to be recognized, particularly in the low flow condition, is any time that youre working with a pump that has any elastomeric content in the pumping chamber itself, if the impeller is either coated or made of an elastomeric or polymeric material, the pressure of operation will become very critical. If a very low flow occurs and a vaporization of the material occurs at an increased pressure, then, of course, the temperature will be increased. It certainly is not uncommon to find plastic or rubber pumps that have been operated under a closed flow condition that have heated up to the melting point of the pump. The impeller then becomes one lump of elastomeric material turning on the end of a rod and it certainly is no longer a pump and quite often can lead to damage of the internal casing of the volute also. These are all conditions to be avoided, of course. One of the typical ways to avoid that is to create a bypass around the flow system so that the pump will always pump a minimum flow, or somewhat above the very minimum flow, around to a reservoir so that the temperature of the material in the pump body itself does not increase rapidly if the flow drops to a very low condition. Quite often, an orifice bypass is used for this. It will maintain the pressure. It will maintain the minimum flow. It costs a little bit in efficiency sometimes, but its a very worthwhile protection of the pump. A second method that is used for this kind of operation is a flow indication downstream that will, on reaching some minimum flow condition, open a second valve and cause a recycle into the feed in order to maintain a minimum flow through the pump. Then, of course, a decision should be made whether that is a condition to be alarmed with, whether it is something that will happen infrequently, but regularly, and is to be recognized but need not be alarmed, or is something that will happen relatively infrequently and is accepted when it happens, then, when conditions return to normal, the flow conditions and so on, will return back and the bypass line will close. So, some protections against those kinds of cavitationlow flow and heatingare always important. A second situation that can occur and is a matter of some concern because it will cause damage to the pump is the high flow condition. If the downstream pressure becomes much lower than is anticipated, depending on how motor sizing is taken care of with the pump, you can run into a high flow condition where the motor itself will overload and the motor or the driver of the pump will end up being damaged in some way because of excessive load. Quite often, pumps are requested to be designed so that they are definitely non-overloading. This, of course, puts quite a bit of responsibility on the one with the final responsibility for selecting the pump and driver combination. It also gets to be a matter of some concern in the balance between pump and transfer method selection on a centrifugal pump and system design

because often there are minor changes in system design that dont get related back to the purchasing or acquisition phases for the pump. A small pump that is later on deemed inconsequential from a project or the unit cost standpoint quite often will have a significant operating responsibility or operating effect simply because it hasnt been reconsidered in the selection review of the pump. A pump that was originally anticipated to be non-overloading is now in a condition where the system change is such that it can become a motor overloading condition. Of course, something that can damage the motor has multiple possible effects. Certainly one of the things that was very typical in the past would be, especially with an electric motor, to buy it with a 1.15 service factor. This would mean that you normally had a 10 to 15% overload capability without a particular problem. Another thing that was often done is the specifics of the electric power supply to the pump were arranged such that a slight overload would not cause a trip-out of the system. In that case, then, higher amperage flow rates, particularly on an electrical motor, would give some overheating to the pump and this could have disastrous effects in very warm climates. This is something that might be a little bit more acceptable in a very, very cold climate where you have better temperature protection over the windings of the motor, particularly if its an outdoor arrangement. All of these things are trade offs that are relatively bad in practice and should be avoided. The pump and motor combination should be selected for the appropriate conditions of operation and should be reevaluated under the conditions that are finally installed, recognizing that periodically things change. Having run through the variety of some of the concerns to be aware of in the centrifugal pump selection and application, lets talk a little bit about the specifics of the types of drivers and motors that can be used with a centrifugal pump. Several things that weve discussed already pointedly commented on electrical motors. There are, of course, several options to be used with the electric motors. One of the things that motor application specialists quite regularly get into are the types of startup and shutdown conditions. Different specific types of motors can be appropriate for these different conditions. Generally, most people look to the idea that a pump is going to be started up with a fairly decent pressure against it with an immediate demand for usage and, therefore, it will look to a high early starting type motor and running at a constant speed. Then, using a control valve if there are any variations in flow that are anticipated or using some other kind of a distribution system multiple orifices or specialty limited flow designed systems to transfer liquids to a multiple application arrangement downstream. Of course, with a constant speed motor, all of these things are possible. It does bring in the constant requirement of a little bit of extra energy and a little bit of extra cost for that energy and, again, depending on the size of the system that may or not be something of concern. With very large systems it often is. So, a second variation is often looked to and that is a motor that can be operated at a variety of speeds. Then, using the flow indication or the flow requirement, either the actual liquid flow rate or the desired pressure at some given point in the line, as the basis for controlling the speed of the main driver. So, centrifugal pumps can be used at either constant or variable speed. When they go into a variable speed situation, of course, efficiency drops off very dramatically, but you can quite regularly run into significant piping and

instrumentation and a few other savings, particularly if you are operating very close to a constant flow rate, but may only be running in the 10 to 15% flow range variation 90 to 95% of the time. Then, a variable speed motor can be very, very effective in reducing overall responsibilities and problems in the system by taking you down to the fact that you only have one sensing unit and one variable unit, the motor driver itself, and eliminating the questions of secondary control loops on valves, valve operations, and, of course, the other components that come along with that. So, variable speed drives on any motor, and certainly theyre arranged very easily now on electric motors, are a very good way of getting good, small variation, or range adjustment of the flow conditions. A typical driver thats also used is an air motor. These are usually used where space limitations are very small. Air motors, in my experience, have generally been very, very reliable and a very functional way of doing pump driving. Usually, the cost of generating the air and the other problems that come along with it, Id rather argue against the use of air motors for many of the centrifugal pump applications. Quite often the hydraulic motors are used. Again, these can be parts of overall systems where the hydraulic system is generated itself with a centrifugal pump, but that there are many, many little applications somewhere down the line on the systems that need either higher pressure or higher capability. Then, small hydraulic motors and small pumping systems driven with these hydraulic motors can be appropriate around through multiple systems. There are many direct mechanical drivers that can be used with centrifugal pumps. Certainly running down through the range of things that will be familiar to us all, like gasoline engines, steam turbines, gas turbines, quite often letdown turbines that might be used for energy recovery are all viable options for powering pumps. Tape 1 Side 2 (01 track 1a) This is the beginning of tape 1, side 2, of the Professional Development Course, Pumps. Weve just been discussing mechanical drivers for pumps. Certainly one of the most interesting or fascinating little applications of a combined mechanical drive use of a turbine for a pump is the system where some electricity is used from a reservoir to drive a turbine and operate a generator during a high demand electricity portion of the day. Later in the day, the generator is then reconfigured, rewired, or the connections to it are modified so that the generator becomes a pump and some of the water thats been let down through the turbine is pumped back up into the reservoir so that, later on in the day when a high demand period comes again, that same water can be let down through the system and regenerate electricity. This is a very convenient and practical way of doing this in some of the locales that are remote from other generations, but have the physical characters, the geologic and mountainous arrangements, to allow this kind of collection. Of course, the attractive point would be if many of the upper level streams in the area could be directed in there so that not all of the water would have to be pumped back up. Other applications using turbines along pipelines might have to do with very large diesel engines on liquid pipelines. Quite often these are in remote areas. They can be used with more of the actual pumping systems along the pipeline for thicker liquids, like oils or heavy heating oils,

where things like kerosene or gasoline are being pumped, or any lighter liquids might be going through the system. Quite often, some of the large pumping units are shut down. One of the advantages, of course, is whenever diesel is being transferred along the line, the system can be set up so that some of the diesel can be transferred into a local operating tank and used as the energy supply for pumps during those periods when high viscosity and heavier materials are being pumped. We mentioned gasoline engines as drivers for pumps. This is more typically applied from those places that Ive seen in developing countries where its not normal to have large electricity or convenient electricity nearby. Sometimes a direct automobile type engine is hooked up to a pump and operated. This gives the capability of being able to bring a convenient power source to the pump. Again, in developed nations, such as the United States and Europe, this is relatively unusual because of the access to electricity. Certainly, one other application along this line that bears some discussion and, although its not a pumping of liquids, its the natural gas distribution system of the American Southwest where gas turbines are often used to drive the centrifugal compressors that transfer the natural gas. Again, more of the transfer and pressure increasing stations are used during periods of high demand. When lower demand is being called for, then, of course, some of these stations can be turned off and a little higher pressure drops are taken in certain portions of the line and still get sufficient gas transfer. This also leaves the benefit that the gas thats being transferred along the pipeline is often used as the gas that drives the turbines themselves. As with the diesel operated units on large oil pipelines, these gas operated units on the gas transfer pipelines are often operated, controlled, turned on, turned off, and the fuel supplies to them arranged by electric and radio signal from hundreds or even thousands of miles away. And to emphasize, one final mechanical type drive is the steam turbine. Certainly one of the most fascinating applications that Ive been aware of with these has been particularly in the context of sulfuric acid manufacturing process where sulfur liquid is usually pumped and burned with oxygen in order to create SO2, which then is catalytically absorbed and modified in a very strongly exothermic process that generates a lot of steam in secondary heaters. This steam is then used to drive the pumps for all of the rest of the operation, transferring the sulfuric acid, olefin, waters, and the boiler feed water into the recovery unit, to the point that the only electric function within many of these contact plants is a backup pump on the liquid sulfur used for startup situations. Very quickly after startup, the plant is completely self-sustaining in steam and all operations are then done with steam turbines instead of with electric motors. Usually, the offices might have a direct connection to a local utility for computer and certain security backup situations, but often the acid plants are generating electricity and selling it to the local utilities. Well, weve gone through quite a variety of conditions and things that can work with centrifugal pumps. Hopefully, that might have given you a few ideas of other things or special things that can be done with centrifugal pump applications that you have upcoming. Now, lets turn to a little different type of pump, the positive displacement pump. Looking at this, there are several significant points about them, of course. This is, in general, quite a significant type of pump used in a lot of applications and becoming more popular because of

improvements in efficiency, I think. Particularly in the small air-operated type pumps, but widely used in a number of applications in other ways that well talk about under specific pumps. It does get used quite regularly in a variety of industries. Certainly throughout the specialty chemical industries now that pumps made out of specialty polymers and with the variety of diaphragms and seals that can be put onto them are available. They are widely used in the chemical industry. Of course, theyre pretty widely used in the construction industry, too, where they are primarily used for reliable vacuum lift helping of water out of deep trenches and in some other applications in waste handling activities. There are a variety of types that exist. Of course, the typical one to start with, which is well known today, is the diaphragm type. Again, the general description would be two diaphragms, usually connected on opposite sides of a chamber, with a motive force of one kind or another on one side of the diaphragm, the pumped fluid on the other side, and a method for being able to move the diaphragm by force on one side causing an expelling of the pumping medium on the non-pumping side. Once a limit is reached on pumping, then a shift in the operation of the valving is made so that the pumping begins in another direction. So, usually, there are two chambers and its a bi-modal type pumping operation. Another type of positive displacement pump that is not usually possibly identified under that way, but is truly one that uses a flexible impeller, is an impeller that has rubber ears or protrusions on a rod. The rod is then eccentrically mounted in a pumping chamber and the little impellers, as they move around, spring out, remove liquids, and as they get forced into the pinch on the eccentricity arrangement, it will move materials forward. Certainly intermeshing impellers are also used in positive displacement type pumps. Every now and then, youll run into impellers mounted and working with a cage. The cage turns with the impeller and becomes a method of controlling when the volume is in the pump and when the volume is moved through the pump. Often, that is also used. Gear pumps are very, very similar to the intermeshing impeller type pumps. Usually, they are used at relatively high pressures or in situations where very accurate flows are required. Of course, sometimes the reverse of that is also used at a gear pump every now and then or a gear arrangement is used as a measurement of flow. Thats not within the purview of what were going through here, but sometimes it can be used in that way, too. Of course, the pumps can be made out of a variety of plastics. They can also be made of all the varieties of metals and the combinations of seal types and shaft and bearing mounting types, all work in this, also. Many, many of the impeller, impeller and cage, and gear type pumps will use bearings mounted on both sides of the pumping chamber. This gives a great stability to the pump and allows closer clearances to be used. This is one of the things that improves the efficiency and increases the possibility of using this for higher-pressure applications. With plastic pumps, of course, you are going to be limited to the strength of the material of which the casing is made, but often theyre used in the same way with seals near the bearings so that those shafts are held very positively.

One of the older types of positive displacement pumps that has been around for a long time and used in many, many applications, is a piston type pump where very large pistons are moved back and forth. This, of course, is the classic reciprocating steam pump that is most typically found in discussions of old mining operations where a large pump like this was used to move water up out of the lower depths of the mines. Some of the very old discussions talk about using one pump on one level and having it work through three or four different mine levels, sequentially moving liquids from a lower level to an intermediate tank and then from that intermediate tank to another tank and another tank and so on, until they finally get it up above ground or out of the mine and are able to discharge it. Of course, the reasons for this generally came to the idea of the pressure capacities of the piping in the systems that were available. So, they did have to work with no more than a 30, 40 or 50 psi differential. Of course, the old problem of the bugaboo of a maximum 12 or 13 psi suction lift is usually available with the very cold waters that were down in the mines. If they were using it for suction lift, then, of course, that was part of the differential question, also. Another positive displacement type pump that is often realized is one that is a combination of a piston and a diaphragm. Instead of using a motive fluid directly on one side of a pump, a mechanical piston is moved back and forth. The inelasticity or the incompressibility of a pumping fluid is then utilized to cause the diaphragm to move by the action of the piston behind the diaphragm and in a motive fluid. Then, on the other side of the diaphragm, a fluid can be pumped. This type of pump has the advantage of some very high accuracies. There have been many variations on this pump that have been developed with changeable linkages so that a variety of pumping rates can be achieved with a given pump and usually with a very wide range. Some of these pumps are adjustable in run so they can actually be a very closely controlled and automatically controlled during the operation of the pump. They have many applications in recirculating transfer systems that require a basic concentration that can be measured. For instance, one of the areas very regularly used on this is in cooling towers for various treatment chemicals to go into the water where the conditions of the water are measured on a regular basis by instrumentation. The adjustment is made in run in order to be able to keep specialized conditions and be sure that there is no bacterial growth within the cooling tower waters. Also, any other treatment requirements for the water are maintained. Special metals we mentioned before can be used for all of these pumps. Plastics can be used for them. The development and requirements of the springs that are often used on the inlet and discharge of the diaphragm sides of positive displacement pumps, also the seal surfaces and the ball seals that might be used on these diaphragms, all become matters of some significant concern to be assured that youre getting the pumping action that you want, as well as the pump life that youd like to have and not having them eaten up or destroyed by the materials passing through them. Generally, with the diaphragm pumps, there is not much of a concern with very high pressures. The operating fluids that supply them sometimes run into conditions where people will actually use these pumps in what is referred to as a dead-headed condition, or a closed discharge condition. As long as the driving fluid is relatively low in pressure, that can generally be controlled within reason. So, these pumps can be used for filling and discharging operations

where a manual valve or a full-close, full-open valve system is used and the pump, under available driving fluid conditions, will pick up and begin its transfer as soon as a valve is open. However, some of the other type pumps, particularly the gear type or the eccentric impeller types, generally have within them an internal relief valve to prevent over compression of a relatively incompressible material in the pump and to prevent destruction of downstream piping systems. Sometimes these reliefs discharge immediately back into the suction side of the pump. In those cases, some very serious consideration must be given to the amount of temperature pickup that might occur because, again, you can run into a condition of vaporizing the fluid in the pumping chamber because of the mechanical action of the pump. On occasions, these relief valves will discharge back into the supply vessel to the pump. This is a much-preferred arrangement because it does protect the pump and the people around it so that there are no physical destructions of the pieces of equipment. These pumps are available in size varieties that range from pistons that might be millimeters in diameter and have strokes millimeters long, in order to provide very accurate low flow discharges of materials for blending purposes, and can go up to situations where, in one plant where I operated, we were normally pumping a 40% solid slurry at 1,200 to 1,300 gallons per minute and increasing the pressure up to 600 and 800 psi in one stage on a steam powered piston type pump. Generally, the varieties that fit into these pumps, of course, fall into the categories that we all generally see and recognize, and thats capacities of 30, 50, 100, 200, 250 gallons a minute. The mechanical type impeller pumps and gear pumps, as they start getting into the 50, 75, and 100 gallon a minute range, generally start getting expensive fairly quickly because of requirements of gear reducers, additional protection, and the casing size and strength designs. So, be prepared if youre looking for that type of pump. Youre going to see some very significant prices on them as the pumping rate goes up. A variety of style is also available in these pumps. There are many pumps that operate as single situations. There have been series of pumps that were used in many specialty applications where there were multiple stages within a given pump that were used to provide small pressure increases and a little bit more accuracy in its normal functioning operation. This was usually done with four different check valves instead of possibly two on a diaphragm or piston arrangement. Some changes in pressure were adjusted in that way. In terms of multiple inlets, certainly this is not something that you look to as you get a double volute pump with a centrifugal, you dont realize the same kind of condition with a positive displacement pump. The closest comparison might be a double diaphragm pump that operates relatively continuously and would have one incoming line that then feeds into two pumping chambers. One being used for pumping, while the other one is going through its filling cycle and the expelling of the transfer pumping fluid. So, the bi-modal operation could be considered to be a double volute, but its quite different. Sometimes, of course, with the gear type systems, there could be multiple impeller arrangements. Again, very high-pressure situations might require something like this. There are cases where

these pumps are ganged together in order to achieve higher pressures. This is a very delicate balance situation and something that should be reviewed rather thoroughly with the manufacturers any time it is approached. Another thing thats quite typical with several different types of the positive displacement pumps is to find arrangements of a variety of pumping size modules that can be created on a single shaft. So, that at a given turn, a specific amount, that would be different for different fluids, would be discharged per rotation. This is used in order to provide a mixed material of feeding into process operations. Quite regularly this is used in some water treatment situations. Ive seen it used with ratchet type drives that do create a single feed rate at a given time and do it as a shot. Ive seen other situations where these are actually mounted on the shaft of a pump, or a motor, I should say. Then, each turn of the motor creates a certain transfer of different quantities of fluids on a continuous basis. The operating rates of these systems can vary in a variety of ways, but the applications are usually highly specialized. Again, those who work in the industry will be able to help guide and review with you anytime that might be something that would be of interest to you. In any operation that you would have and, of course, in these situations, quite often there are arrangements where individual chambers within the system can be slightly adjusted in order to keep a certain criteria of downstream mix conditions, even though some of the materials might change a little bit in consistency or conditions. One of the rather unique applications of pumping systems such as this, where the old lubricators that were used quite regularly on large pieces of equipment that had many places where just a little bit of oil or lubrication was required, you would see banks of these with each little discharge point visible under a glass cover, or a transparent cover of one kind or another, dropping each individual drop of a lubricant so that you could check and make sure that every point was being lubricated in a regular method. Of course, sometimes there were some operating surfaces that needed a little bit more lubrication than others. So, we started working toward putting different size pumps in different points down those lines. Having reviewed, again, the variety of types and some of the conditions under which they operate, its now appropriate to look at the concerns and special problems that may occur with positive displacement pumps. To go down the line in a similar pattern as we did on the centrifugal pumps, one of the concerns is the idea of whether the pump will run in either direction. Generally they will not. Quite often, if operated in a reverse direction, something will very definitely be obvious that something is going wrong. Typically, there may be check valve situations around the pump that will chatter or make specific noises to indicate something is difficult there. So, checking out rotation prior to hook up is very important with positive displacement pumps. That should certainly always be very carefully done at initial startups, either in original applications and installations or after maintenance work. Beyond the idea of whether they will run or just mechanically operate in either direction, there is the question that since it is a positive displacement pump, if in some way the system is set up so that it is pumping, or trying to pump in the reverse method, it will definitely not do the thing that youre looking for it to do with transfer of material in a given direction. A very dangerous

situation of the reverse may occur and a material quite possibly may come back through the pump that is much more dangerous than the material that you are trying to pump. Therefore, the conditions of operation are significantly changed and this, too, is an item that needs to be very carefully considered and reviewed as they will begin operation. The pump will very definitely cavitate. There are conditions, particularly suction starve conditions, where very disastrous things can occur. A positive displacement pump will very definitely continue drawing on a closed container and, quite regularly, some of those containers have been drawn in if they are not appropriately vented or provided with the sufficient strength for low-pressure operations. I think many of us have seen that as a problem, periodically, even with using centrifugal pumps on pumping out storage tanks. Its not a very attractive situation to find yourself in. Generally, its not a particular disaster, but in the case of a positive displacement pump, it could be and it could be more serious than in most other situations because of the strength of the tendency to operate and to create fluid transfer. We mentioned earlier the idea of being careful about relief of the pumps and keeping them under the proper conditions. These problems of vapor binding or boiling of a material inside a positive displacement pump, particularly the gear type or the rotary type, is something that is also of significant concern. Generally, one of the things that we might consider in using these pumps is that they are often pumping a relatively viscous material, which might generally indicate something that is thicker or higher in possibly organic content. At least, in my general experience, a lot of it has been organic material. Of course, once you start getting too hot there, then you will be creating dried materials and carbons and some very serious destruction and problems can occur if you try and run under those conditions. The pump will very definitely operate at conditions that can destroy itself. We have indicated a couple of those, cavitation and low flow conditions, definitely overheating. Weve just reviewed that one. High flow conditions. Certainly things like that can occur, too. If the sizing of the pump, the sizing of the system, is not carefully done and the downstream pressure happens to drop in any of a variety of conditions, you may find yourself in a very high flow condition due to efficiencies or particularly a new pump or new impeller situation that can, again, get into motor overload conditions or, worse than that, overloading the downstream transfer system in various ways that can cause significant damage to that. Definitely with a positive displacement pump, blocked flow conditions are something to be very carefully reviewed. System drainage, to be sure that material and liquids are out of the system and cannot set up once a flow system is shut down, is a matter of significance with positive displacement pumps. It is very inconvenient to have to take down a pumping system in order to be able to remove a catalyzed plastic or a very hot plastic that has been allowed to cool and set up. All of these things have happened in industry. They are certainly not desirable. Thats one of the reasons why I mention them here because they could be of significant concern for you to pay to attention to and consider as you begin putting systems together with positive displacement pumps. The control of the temperature, the control of the materials in there, and particularly the removal of the materials in there, can be very important for the overall safety of the plant and personnel as a primary condition. Of course, it can be very detrimental if improperly handled to the physical aspects of the motors and the pumps themselves.

The final item is a general requirement on the positive displacement pumps or, again, the variety of drivers. Weve mentioned that fluids can be used with the diaphragm type pumps, either air or liquids, to be able to move the diaphragms. This can be done in a variety of ways. It can be supplied from another pump, it can be supplied, of course, from air compressors, but periodically these type pumps are driven with electric motors. Again, you have the operation decision of whether its a constant speed motor or whether you need a variable speed motor and all of the attendant requirements of making the decision of which is the appropriate drive to use. Air motors are less often used for positive displacement pumps. They certainly can be used if conditions warrant. Usually, an air, rotating motor is not significant, but certainly lots and lots of air-operated double diaphragm pumps are used for transfer of materials. Hydraulic motors certainly could be used. Now, we then run into all the questions of the other mechanical type drives, whether they be gasoline engine, steam turbines, gas turbines, and so on. There might be applications for using these, but, in most situations on positive displacement pumps, I think youll find that theyll either be air operated or electrically driven. If there are specialty requirements of using other driving types, then there will be specialty industrial conditions that will dictate this. Thats something, again, that should be very carefully reviewed with the vendors, makers of the equipment, and applications people who are considering putting them in. The special requirements of the drive type and drive conditions, the powered materials, and instrumentation that goes with it, are all things that should be very carefully discussed before making a selection of specialty drives for positive displacement pumps. As a little diversion at this point, I would throw in a consideration that has always been a bit of a fascination to me and thats to look back at steam engines as they operated and recognized the specific requirements for water transfer that existed in the old steam locomotives. To recognize how peculiar and unusual the conditions were of a very large moving mass of equipment that had to be regularly provided with a consistent and reliable flow of fairly good quality water in order to create the steam necessary to make the engine drive as it rolled down the tracks. The old conditions along the tracks of recognizing the water tanks and the refilling of the water tanks and, of course, to look at many of the things that are seen around these days, particularly in central Europe, and in pictures that Ive seen, anyway, of areas in China, Mongolia, and Eastern Russia, of engines with large cooling plates on the discharge of the steam operating cylinders so that the discharged steam after its used is condensed and recycled in order to be able to limit the number of water stops that had to be made. I have to tip my hat and throw a little word of significant praise to the gentlemen of long ago who came up with the techniques of being able to keep all of these systems going and operating on a reliable method on that massive hunk of material hurdling down a set of rails. I hope that this little diversion has been of interest to you, but we have now come to the end of tape one, side two of the Professional Development Course, Pumps.

Tape 2 Side 1 (01 track 1b)

This is the beginning of tape 2, side 1, of the Professional Development Course entitled Pumps. In this portion of the tape, well begin talking about some pumps that are a little less common, but still widely used in many specialty-pumping applications. Ill refer to them generally as progressive cavity pumps. There are other references that are used in many magazines of screw type pumps or peristaltic pumps. Sometimes these are a little bit more specialized applications, but generally, as I said, Ill begin the reference as a progressive cavity pump. The operation of this type pump is fairly easy to describe, but not very easily defined because of the variety of pumps that are used in this application. Generally, the movement of one rotating unit of one kind or another inside the cavity creates a passage that is moved forward during the operation of the pump and provides a discharge. Now, obviously there is an anomaly in this immediately because of the new peristaltic hose type pumps that have been referred to where there is an external mover that, indeed, forces the liquid along down through the pump. So, the general application is that there is a portion of material to be pumped that is, in some way, isolated in a chamber. Then, by the action of some mechanical means, that unit of pumped material is moved along through the system until it is discharged, again, in another location at a higher pressure and so on. Generally, these pumps have somewhat specialized applications. They can be used in a wide variety of situations, but because of cost, applications, areas, space, and other requirements, they are often used as a final resort pump. I hesitate to use the item, last resort, but it generally requires unusual conditions that are not normal conditions to consider using this type pump. One of the areas of application that are very typical of these pumps are non-newtonian activities. Of course, this now covers quite a range of fluids and can include everything from slurries to very thick materials, to materials that have very specialized sheer characteristics where you would like to have very low sheer conditions when youre actually doing the fluid handling on a mechanical basis, but a more moderate sheer as the flow gets started in order to take advantage of certain characteristics of sheer viscosity that can occur. Here, I would interject a little comment that I remember from physical chemistry education from quite a while ago. Our professor said that one of the things quite regularly done with new people going into the study of physical chemistry was for those more experienced to be in there and begin talking with them and telling them about physical chemistry while playing with a little ball of material in their hands. Then, just toss the ball to the newcomer and watch the reaction. The little ball would be a material made out of a cornstarch-water mixture that, as long as it was kneaded and rolled and worked and kept in a relatively high sheer condition, would remain as a somewhat plastic type or rubbery kind of ball. It could even be bounced and tossed around for people to move, but if it wasnt worked on a continuous basis, it would turn into a fluid. It would just be a mess all over the persons hands. So, this is one of the conditions that can exist within these pumps, too. There are materials that will react in this way and so the sheer conditions in the pump and the mixing condition in there have a big effect on what happens with the performance of the material in the pump and the material after the pump. Going down through the variety of types that we can run into with this type pump, one of the very simplest is a screw pump. This essentially is like intermeshing threads on a screw. For me, one of the simplest comparisons that I might offer is somewhat like a twin screw extruder, but

quite often the screws are intermeshing rather than tangential and so they might be thought of more like a lobe air blower that is used as, again, a progressive cavity type pump, but used for air. Screw pumps are used for very thick liquid materials or liquid-like materials and one of the specific applications that Im aware of using this kind of pump is pumping very thick slurries that are used to create catalyst-based materials and pump them through a dye as a paste-like material. Then create the size that youre looking for as the catalyst support or the catalyst mechanism. A variety of screw type pump might be called the mated impeller and lining pump. Of course, there are trade names that go with these things and several people making them now. One of the widely known makers of this type pump in the past has been Moyno. I do not suggest that this is the best of those available, but it is one of the names and, unfortunately, it has often been used as a characteristics reference to this type pump. However, there are alternate manufacturers of this same type pump. In this case, a screw-like unit is turned within a sinusoidal type lining. The several specific requirements that come into using this type pump are that the drive usually must be flexible since the pump, in fact, turns in a generally eccentric type motion as it works inside the lining material. Also, one of the things that becomes a bit of a question on this is the sealing around the shaft as it begins to drive. This has been an area of some interest and concern over time with the materials. However, certainly one of the things that is very true with this pump is, that in use, particularly in non-newtonian fluid applications, it can be very valuable because it does have limited sheer characteristics. So, you can handle material in a very gentle way through this pump and through the rest of the piping system. So, it is usually very reliable for those situations. Finally, weve made a couple of allusions in the general discussion, but the peristaltic, or hosetype pump, has been a relatively recent innovation in the last 10 or 15 years. It has certainly been, Im sure, a lifesaver for some people in some applications. The general condition here is that a hose is laid in an arch of some kind and a driver has connected to it several arms. At the end of those arms there are rollers. As the roller comes around and approaches and touches the hose, it creates a backflow block. Then, by rolling down the hose, moves material down through the hose and forward. A very simple idea. Something that started out as possibly a laboratory curiosity, but functional, has now become an industrial pump in many applications and certainly very serviceable for many materials. I do have some concerns about applications of these type pumps because of the potential for tube failure. One of the questions that always has to be balanced out in any plant design is the question of a little bit of leakage on a continuous basis versus a very large leakage on a failure basis in other ways. Certainly, working with smaller pumps or different pumps with long known shaft seals, you cannot completely eliminate all leakage all of the time. So, for some materials, thats something that would want to be avoided and, certainly, this hose type pump is a way to consider avoiding that. However, then youre faced with the question of what is the real hose life in the pump because if the material is as dangerous as implied by the desire to completely get away from a seal question on a pump, then if the hose were to fail in operation, the loss would probably be even greater and more significant at any given time. So, the hose failure now becomes a factor and we get into the cost trade-off of how frequently do we change out the hose

in order to minimize the potential for failure versus the cost of maintaining control over a leakage near a shaft on another variety of pump. Certainly, all of these pumps that weve suggested here, the screw, the mated impeller and lining, and the peristaltic type pump, can be made with a variety of materials. Quite frequently, the liners are rubber or very flexible plastics. Often, specialty metals are used in many of these pump systems. Plastics are quite regularly used, particularly for the mated impeller and lining. These become very specialized plastics due to the wear conditions that can occur, particularly if you are pumping slurry with a material that has any wearing characteristics to it. Of course, the rubbing aspect of the impeller or screw inside the mated lining will offer a question of contamination of material being pumped. So, thats something that has to be taken into account when considering this. From the metal standpoint, certainly with the screw type pump if theyre intermeshing, there is a wear and clearance question that will always be there. With any of the other type pumps, particularly the peristaltic or hose type pump, the big questions there are what are the surroundings made out of and what do you want to make the support and the rotor arms, and so on, so that is not the principal point of failure of the system. Sizes of these pumps, of course, are available in quite a range. Many of the mated impeller and lining pumps have a limitation on lower end size, but they can become very large. Other pumps, the screw pumps certainly, would generally be moderate in size. Ive never experienced the application of these down in the fractional volume flows or the milliliter per second type flows, but certainly in larger flows, things that were frequently faced with the 30 and 50 gallon a minute screw type pumps have been used very regularly in those. As for size variety in the peristaltic or hose type pumps, many vendors will bring those out and discuss those quite regularly with you. They can be very large. Ive seen advertisements for them with six- and eight-inch diameter hoses, which means a pretty significant drive and some pretty significant space requirements, but for many applications, this is something that is worth considering. With these pumps, also, there are a few things that can be done in terms of installation style. When I speak of this, Im thinking more of which end is fed, whether its fed from the powered end or from the non-powered end. Particularly with the mated impeller and lining situation, this can be done very easily, so you do have a variety of opportunities there to select placement and the arrangement of the motor and pump situation. Certainly, if you are driving it from the discharge end, youre now into the point that you have a pressure concern for the material as it comes to the discharge. So, your sealing is going to be a little bit different. Something like this might be appropriate in a place where the pump is used to create a mix as it comes down the line and that you really dont want to have the sealing problem where there might be a combination of solids and liquids that would not possibly exist at the end of the mixing use of the pump. With these pumps, system arrangements can be rather interesting. It is not unusual for some of these situations to see series pumps because of pressure or mixing requirements, but, of course, parallel pumping systems on all of these are possible. Again, the usual recommendation is to be

sure that your relative sizes, flows, and so on, match so that one pump is not fighting another if they are installed in parallel. Generally, each size of these pumps is relatively limited in its operating range of rate. A given size only has a certain speed range within which it can operate. So, you are much more affected by rate and in selection of the unit that you want to use than you might be with some other pumps. Centrifugal pumps can give a very wide range of operating flow rates even to the standpoint of changing impeller diameters in order to effect or allow combinations of flow and pressure that were considerably different from what a pump might have originally been selected for. With these type systems, theyre a little bit more mechanically limited in what they can put through the operating components of the pumps themselves. Having gone through a general discussion of these type pumps, I would at this point offer to you a suggestion that a very good reference to be able to see the variety of internals of a number of pumps to consider something like this, and several other varieties as they come along, would be a specialty handbook that was published by Power Engineering magazine in October of 1954. That may sound like something quite old and possibly outdated, but I think youll find that its an excellent reference and a very convenient thing. I would suggest that the publishers of that magazine be contacted. You may be able to find examples of that little handbook still available. Of course, manufacturers of pumps generally put out small magazines or handbooks on pump design and varieties. All of these are excellent references to have, but the systems put together and shown by trade magazines will usually give you a very broad cross-section of the types of pumps that are available on the market and give you a little better chance to see what all is available. Of course, the old standard reference of the Perrys Chemical Engineers Handbook also includes demonstrations of quite a few pumps. This is a worthwhile thing to have available when youre considering any of these things, too. Some of the pictures and illustrations that are shown can certainly help in understanding whether the pump will indeed fit to your application and making an investment in something like this. Usually, its somewhat more expensive than the more typical pumps and, therefore, as you make that investment, youll want to go through the range of information available and have a good understanding of what you want to do with the pump as you move forward. With these pumps, of course, certainly there are some concerns that have to be addressed and weve discussed this kind of item on the reviews of the centrifugal and positive displacement pumps. Certainly, lets run down through the general categories here, too. Because of the special mechanical requirements of these pumps, generally they will not work in either direction. You can have some safety in that, but, of course, that brings back the comment that we mentioned on positive displacement that it makes the requirement of checking the rotation before final use and hookup much more important. Generally, these pumps will not really work in either direction. By that I mean the transferring flow. Certainly, on things like the peristaltic or hose pump, if the rotation were reversed, you would end up having some backflow possibilities, but youre very limited because the downstream piping arrangements usually dont give you a supply. So, you would often end up being in a starved condition, which may not be appropriate for the materials or construction of the selection that youve made.

Screw pumps, particularly the mated metal units, quite possibly might be able to turn in a reverse direction, but the gearing and so on inside those generally makes that an unpopular thing to do with the manufacturers. Youll generally find in their literature very strong recommendations, again, to be sure of the rotational direction because the pump is designed to work in a given direction. Reverse directions certainly could cause some serious internal concerns. These pumps are usually not moving at high rates of flow and, therefore, there is less concern about the problem of cavitation. Now, that does not mean that boiling cannot occur in these because, certainly, youll recognize that if a downstream line is partially plugged and you have this essentially positive displacement pump, you could put an awful lot of mechanical work into some liquid very quickly. If there is the possibility of some fluid slip or some recycling inside the system, you can very easily get into boiling conditions and possibly the cooling and collapse that are the creators of the problems of cavitation. Generally, because they are specialized application pumps, their arrangements are such that people are pretty sure that they dont allow them to get into those conditions. So, the cavitation and the vapor binding questions go down in basic concern, but are all there in overall concern to be sure that those conditions are avoided. Of course, operating manuals for the pumps themselves and, hopefully, the representatives of the specific pump manufacturers, if you move into those, would help and review with you any of the arrangements to offer their suggestions to be sure that those kinds of conditions will not exist. A very big concern, though, is that because they are very mechanical in nature, there are some very serious concerns about use of these in operation. If the feed to the pump is in any way arranged so that something that is larger than the cavity will drop into the pump, its very easy to jam one of these systems or create a significant piece of damage to the internals of one of these systems. So, some kind of assurance of small particles feeding into any of these pumps is a matter of some interest. Certainly the conditions of low flow, many of these positive displacement pumps and these are representatives of that will indeed get into an overheating situation. Series of high flow is usually very difficult to obtain, but variations in viscosity, density, or downstream conditions can easily create conditions that would lead to concern to motor overheating and overloading, or drive overloading in terms of what is there. Of course, finally, speed is something to be of great interest. Speed, of course, is a significant factor in friction, particularly with flow rate or, in any case, the material might be somewhat limited in flow. If there is friction, then internal damage can occur. We suggested that in the centrifugal pumps where we mentioned that using a plastic pump and pumping a boilable liquid against a relatively high head could create a condition that is so hot that the impeller softens up and is destroyed. The same thing can occur in many of these pumps if youre trying to pump a material that is either too hot or youre trying to pump it at conditions where the friction inside the pump itself can increase to a point where the internals can be damaged. You can run into some very serious problems on replacement and rebuilding of this type pump. They are a very expensive base unit and replacements and modifications are comparably expensive.

The last item that weve generally discussed in looking at the variety of pumps, as weve talked through them, are the drivers. This is one of the areas where the progressive cavity pumps probably offer some very interesting alternatives, mainly from the standpoint of use in varieties of flow rate conditions. The general aspects of drivers for these are very similar to any other pump and, certainly, electric motors are the most typical drive for these. Probably less potential for application for any of the specialty situations, like turbines, letdown turbines, or gasoline engines, and so on, simply because of the complexity of the mechanical system for being able to connect to the pump and to drive it. The electric motors, particularly variable speed electric motors, would offer quite a variety of opportunities with these pumps. I would review for just a minute one particular application that I was exposed to. We had a relatively thick paste that was to be conveyed through a relatively long pipeline. General calculations on the flow conditions in the pipeline indicated that the pressure drop was so severe that we would probably have to go to thick wall piping on the system. However, in reviewing and looking at the flow rates, it was very easily understood that the designed flow rates were fairly high and that, because of this, the pressure drop was correspondingly high and that, under general pumping conditions, we would probably be in somewhat better or more favorable conditions. So, the system was put together with a relief valve, basically a rupture disk in this case, at the feed end of the system to be able to protect the piping system from high pressure. The pump itself was then arranged with a variable speed drive and the material was started at low flow rates, moved up to a moderate flow rate very quickly in order to get the line into a full condition, and then very quickly controlled to the desired operating flows by carefully watching the line pressure. Certainly, we generally operated fairly close, again, those are all relative terms, but at something in the 80 to 85% of the designed operating capabilities of the pipeline that we were using and had very successful service. It was 5 to 8% below the typical design rate that might have been used for that pipeline, but given those situations and the maximums that could occur with the pump, the relief mechanism was a completely satisfactory protection for everything involved and worked out very nicely for the overall system. Certainly, this kind of arrangement is possible in any of the other pumps that are there, too. Again, operating rates are, as I suggested earlier, generally of more concern in selecting these pumps. So, your variations are more limited than under some other conditions. Certainly for some systems, air motors or hydraulic motors might be appropriate for these units under very specialized arrangements, but, as I said earlier, the very mechanical type drives of very large engines, steam and so on, probably are inappropriate to these much more mechanically involved pumping systems. Weve now spent some time reviewing each of the several types of pumps and discussing some of the characteristics about their application. Now, I would like to add to this section that Ill refer to as a kind of pump magic. This is something to be aware of and, hopefully, the little suggestions and guidelines in here will be of some help to you as you look at pumping systems in the future.

The first one I would like to review with you is the idea of casing pressure distribution. This applies primarily to centrifugal pumps, but it was a very interesting thing for me to learn some time ago and I think that its important enough to pass it on as a special idea. That would be the understanding that if you look at the volute of a centrifugal pump casing, you see that the discharge from the impeller is isolated from the inlet as it comes in by the action of the impeller. The spinning of the impeller creates the head that is recognized or measured and realized in the outside edge of the volute. That feeds out through the discharge of the pump. The impeller eye is, of course, on one end of that impeller, or one side of the impeller, and on the other side of the impeller is the drive shaft. Therefore, the liquid connection behind the impeller is a direct involvement of the pressure in the casing volute. It is held there by the action of the pump and by the action of the impeller and isolated in the back of the case so that the whole back or drive side of the impeller case receives essentially the same pressure as the pump discharge. This means that the seal on the pump shaft sees, on a continuous basis, the highest pressure in the pump. On the inlet side, or the eye side, there is, of course, some leakage flow back down between the impeller and the casing, also, but its going down to the lower pressure of the inlet flow. Thats one of the inefficiencies in the pump, but the shaft side regularly sees the pressure of the discharge of the pump. So, thats one of the things to keep in mind as you select and pick your pump pressures and your pump sealing. Thats what will occur. There is a way to resolve that problem, though. If the pressure at the casing, or at the seal for the system, seems excessively high, a very simple solution to this is to go into the impeller itself and drill a hole from the back of the impeller, the solid plate, through to the eye and very close to the shaft. This will provide enough leakage so that the actual pressure seen at the shaft will now come closer to the inlet pressure rather than the outlet pressure and the potential problems for sealing are somewhat reduced. Im sure that youll find that there are a variety of pumps available on the market that will provide you with impellers that have just such a hole, low and close to the shaft, and in the back section of the impeller plate, to provide just this kind of protection. It is, of course, particularly attractive to look at places where something other than a mechanical seal is used. Particularly things like packing and reducing the pressure that must be recognized by that first roll of packing will improve packing life and reduce packing difficulties for any pumps that might happen to still use that. Of course, its a very easy way to reach that. The other thing is the actions of the seals themselves maintain those conditions. Also, recognizing that if there are just even slight solids impurities in the flowing stream and they are under very high pressures in the back, they can be forced out through the seals. If theyre a wearing type material, they can, of course, have a very serious effect on the surface life, or the seal surface life, and thats an undesirable. Of course, the other thing is if you are flushing the seals with a water of some kind to try and prevent liquid from moving back toward the seal, by lowering the pressure that youre pumping against, youll generally have better control over the amount of flush water that goes inor whatever the flush fluid might be. You will be protecting the seals to an even greater extent because of the reduced pressure downstream and the circulation of the pumped liquid back to the inlet, giving you a little bit more assurance that, in the immediate area of the seal itself, any flush liquid that goes in there would be more favorably positioned under general circumstances.

As were very close to the end of tape two, side one, tape situation, I will discontinue activities on the discussions of these other special points now and resume again on tape two, side two.

Tape 2 Side 2 (02 track 2b) General Characteristics of Pumps Pump Magic The second item that Ill discuss and review with you for a moment is the idea of seal and packing pressure options. The first item that we talked about was one way of controlling seal and packing pressure. However, there are other ways to do this. Somewhat unusual, but not necessarily infrequent, is to actually arrange the inlet of the liquid to come in on the drive shaft side of the impeller. This way, youre always sealing against the incoming liquid conditions. Youre always at a somewhat lower pressure, generally, probably at the low atmospheric under many conditions because of the operation of the impeller and the pumping system. This is another way to reduce the pressure problems in the area of the drive shaft seal. This was a condition I observed under one of the systems that I operated where a set of pumps were put in for an operating system. They were showing very high wear on the seals, which happened to be packing. This was some time ago. In addition to that, we found that the impellers, as they turned, were seeing very high wear, particularly behind the plate because of handling slurry. So, the problems of the slight bit of leakage, plus a continual build up of some fine particles behind the plate, created some very serious wear conditions. By switching the conditions here so that we could bring the inlet in on the suction side, we were able to mitigate all of those questions and ended up with a much better, long-term operation of the pumps using this way. Of course, the structural considerations and the piping arrangements for being able to handle this are quite unusual and not for everyone to consider, but it is something that can be used to modify and change centrifugal pump, particularly inlet pressures. This same thing is somewhat true with the idea of the progressive cavity pumps that we talked about a little bit before. You can, in fact, drive these from both ends and, in some occasions, it would seem attractive to put the suction on the opposite of the drive end of the pump. However, in doing this, what you run into is that the discharge pressure is right at the drive shaft and that is the highest pressure seen in the pump. Again, all of the attendant problems of a potential for leakage, wear, and other things, occur in the most disadvantageous area of the pump itself. So, by actually taking a rearrangement or looking at a different configuration of the pump, if you reduce the suction conditions to the point at which the pump is driven and discharge at the non-driven, youre usually in a position that you can actually close off that end more easily and be operating with lower pressure conditions. Again, these are areas where some consideration must be made of what particular pump selection is being considered and what pump configuration is appropriate to a given system and potential use.

Lets move on now to a third itemsomething that is also a regular involvementsomething that we all see. As I mentioned at the beginning of the discussion here, I certainly dont want to, in a voice discussion like this, try and get into an explanation of the details of NPSH conditions. They are, however, very significant for any pump application. Periodically, we do run into situations where, either from increased flows or a few other conditions that might occur, some requirements for improved straining or feeding a pump, we begin to lose a little bit of the available positive pressure for feeding a pump. The question then comes in, is there anything that can be done to improve that? Well, certainly there is. One of the very serious things that can be done on that is to reconsider the piping. Give yourself an opportunity to straighten out and eliminate excess bends and turns. Possibly replace elbows or Ts with long sweeps or lateral Ys, if those are available. All to improve the potential for flow to the eye of the impeller and to give yourself an opportunity with a few minor piping changes to increase and improve conditions rather than having to look at a whole new pumping arrangement. However, another option that is also available is a flow enhancer or flow inducer. Many pump manufacturers, particularly for centrifugal pumps, but quite often for the specialized type of pumps, particularly something like the screw or the progressive cavity pump, will give you an opportunity of adding a large lead screw-type unit in the inlet to the pump that will, in fact, start picking up the flow a little bit earlier and enhance that flow into the pump eye and eliminate some of the potential problems that are caused in elbows and turns and other things leading to the pump, and give the inlet area of the impeller a much smoother feed condition. In this way, sometimes a few percent can be gained on overall maximum flow, but often you can be in the condition of a non-serviceable NPSH being enhanced into a serviceable NPSH in order to operate and stay with the same pumping system that you have. Again, reviews with specific manufacturers to find out whether they have these NPSH enhancers on the inlet is the recommended option. Look forward to those and find those places where people think that they would be suitable. Certainly, this is going to be something that youre going to have to consider yourself very carefully because you will, of course, recognize that the difference between selling a component piece that can be added fairly simply to an existing pump is a lot lower volume sale than selling a whole new pump and so on and so forth. So, the trade off has to be made as a decision for yourself of how serious the need is and what the conditions are. If youre trying to get 5% more flow out of the unit thats operating and very critical on a 7/24/365 basis, it might be more attractive to recognize the situation of putting in a new pump. There are other options downstream and there might be further improvements later on that you want even more flow. If youre into a situation where youre at the end of a service life on a system, youre into part of a significant changeover and rebuilding of the system in other ways, possibly a method of flow enhancing for a period of three or six months or a year or two, it might be a more attractive option than creating a whole new pumping system to recognize a new pump base, new power supply, and possibly increased motor size for a relatively short period of time. So, suction pressure enhancement can be done in several ways. Another item to be interested inits not as significant a concern as some of the others that weve discussedis the actual

condition of the flow curves, particularly as you get into the lower range of operating of the pump and the higher pressures. One of the things that becomes a crossover piece of information of using the idea of pumps, in general, is that there are conditions that are observed on one type of transfer device that are not necessarily as easily observed or as readily apparent on another type. In this case, is the idea of the specific configuration of the pump curve there in the beginning, in the very low volume areas. If you go to an air compressor, particularly centrifugal air compressors, you find that the curve will actually go through a rather sinusoidal condition where at zero flow, you will have a very high pressure, but as the flow picks up, the pressure availability will drop off a little. Then, as the flow starts gaining again even further, will start going back up in pressure a little bit, and then go over the curve and drop off in pressure at the higher flow rates. In air compressors, that usually results in a problem of hunting and a vibration. Its something very seriously avoided. Unfortunately, on some impeller designs, this can occur to a very slight degree, also, and if the centrifugal pump is in a case where it is regularly backed down to relatively low flow conditions, again, weve spent a lot of time talking about that in this and recognizing that you want to be very concerned about those conditions because of the potential damage effects on the impeller, but, if it occurs infrequently but often enough to be of concern, then be aware that this little sinusoidal dip in the early part of the curve, usually down in a 2 or 3 or 5% range, may be one of the things thats creating a bit of a problem in pumping activities or regaining pump conditions as you try and go back up. Often times, some little thing like this will end up creating a control anomaly that makes it much more difficult to recover and regenerate rapidly from changes in conditions. Be very aware of those kinds of little things that occur on pump curves as they start. One of the things, certainly, to be aware is that kind of condition is a particular danger if for any reason the centrifugal pump is installed and started up running in a reverse direction, that low flow situation will be very confusing and something to definitely be avoided. The next item to consider is system integration and multiple pumps. This is an area that many of us have spent long hours fighting and trying to find good ways to answer and resolve questions that occur here. Its very tempting in many situations to have a pump thats performing in a given way and say, Well, I just need a little bit more flow, Ill get a pump and, gee, the curves arent very dissimilar. I can just put these in parallel. You put them in and very unusual things start happening with the pumping system. Without trying to go into all of the things that can occur, basically this is something that is to be avoided. If more flow is needed, the best thing to do is to use parallel pumps of exactly the same type. That way you can have a somewhat more significant assurance that the conditions as they increase and as you get to needing both of the flows, will indeed perform similarly in the two pumps and just slight variations of curve performance and volute design and impeller design and impeller circulation conditions within 2 or 3 or 5% of a desired operating point can cause some very serious changes and sometimes create backflow situations, sometimes create dangerous build up situations, or dead line situations, that no one is really looking for and that you really want to stay away from. So on parallel systems, generally the best thing to do is to be sure that the pumps and the impellers, everything thats involved with them, are as close to being the same as possible and

balancing your system on the basis of that kind of physical configuration. In series flows, one of the things to be concerned about is the idea of the seal or packing pressure that we discussed a little bit earlier. In many cases, it would seem relatively insignificant to add a pump ahead of another pump and use that as a flow enhancer in order to be able to get a little bit more capacity. The potential problem with that is in lower flow conditions, the head available out of the primary pump or the inducing pump, might be a little bit higher than you anticipate if the impeller and the volute in the secondary pump is a little bit more efficient than you might expect. All of a sudden the pressure is back in the seal areas can go very high and if its an impeller that does not have the seal pressure relief arrangement, as discussed initially, your seal pressure, again, is going to go very high and can create leakages, can be a source of considerable concern, with very difficult to explain changes in pressure that dont seem to be there from the basic design reviews that went into the system originally. Another thing to be very concerned about in putting together large series pump systems, is the idea of what maximum pressure conditions can occur through the systems. If its appropriate to use, pumps in series, whether they be a couple of pumps very closely, tied in series, or some that might be separated by hundreds of feet or even hundreds of miles, one of the very serious concerns that comes in is the idea of are there flow controls, what is the mechanism of operation of the flow and the flow controlling device, and what happens when youre trying to limit the flow in a particular application that I was exposed to several years ago. There was a combination of pumps in series taking from a feed vessel through some processing equipment into another series of pumps to pass on through some other processing equipment and into a final pump for some significant pressure elevation into an operating vessel. In that particular case, we had to reduce flow on several occasions and even going back to only 25 or 30% of the flow of the system, we ran into the occasion that the pumps under this flow condition were at their somewhat most efficient conditions. The process equipment that they were passing through, as they went on into the arrangement, were a little bit cleaner and more taken care of than it might have been originally anticipated. So, the pressure that was actually available on the discharge of the second pump ended up being so significant that the control valve, in order to get down to the desired overall flow rate, was only a few percentage points open. Under these conditions, there was a limitation to the amount of pressure drop that could be achieved at the control valve. Because of that, downstream, there was significant flash of vaporation and collapse of the liquid stream flow, which was primarily water-based, and the pressure situation balanced out fairly quickly in the second batch of processing equipment and was not really measured again until it came into the in-load of the third pump, but one of the things that became very evident was that a lot of the noise and collapse and so on that we were hearing in the process equipment soon after the flow control arrangement was more than we would want and more than we anticipated. At maintenance situations as we would take the equipment apart, we would find out that a divider plate on a heat exchanger that was 1.5 inches thick was so violently involved in the pressure collapse and recovery and some of the other pressure conditions, that it was bent over and became ineffective as pass controller and heat exchanger. Where we thought we had a two-pass heat exchanger, we had like a pass and a quarter heat exchanger. About 25% of the flow was actually operating as a complete bypass and so we were losing significant amount of the effectiveness of one of the heat exchanger circuits.

So, again, in looking at pumping systems, the overall balance, the conditions of very low flow, the conditions of higher flow, always need to be considered, to be investigated, particularly in very long-term operating systems, a 24-7-365 system, is not going to sit on the averages all of the time. Its going to go through considerable variations often as much as 50% in any given week or month period and I think all of us who have been in processing plants recognize that, as much as we try to keep things running very smoothly, were regularly into the problems of startups and shutdowns. Those are the times that we have to worry most about everything thats going on, particularly about employee safety and plant safety and reliability for the protection of all of the employees as well as the continual protection of the plant operation. So, a further reminder that its another one of those areas that bare some significant consideration and review as you move forward with it. A final area of concern for discussion about pumps relates to the inlet piping to pumps. Its often a question and concern in preparing a pump inlet to arrange the piping and the foundations and so on for the pumps so that the flow from whatever vessel is feeding is flat and horizontal and leading directly and very simply to the pump. Periodically, a little later, it will come in and this little error will involve the pump possibly being a little bit higher than the piping is expected as it goes over. A very simply solution to that is often an eccentric reducer and in the case that Ive just mentioned where the pump has to go up a little bit, the installation, the eccentric reducer, with a flat section on the top is no problem. Unfortunately, the opposite occasion occurs, periodically, and thats where were in a condition that the pump is a little bit lower or the pump was originally set up with a concentric reducer and theres a reason to change. Any one of these situations, whether it be a concentric reducer or an eccentric reducer with a flat side on the bottom, will ultimately lead to problems with the pump. This leaves the opportunity for an air pocket to collect on the inlet to the line. That air or gas pocket, whichever it might be, will always pass on into the system and through the pump at the most inopportune time and create problems with the flow, with other operations downstream, with the introduction of extraneous gases or air in places that you dont want them. Also, of course, it will lead to problems of air pockets somewhere in the pipeline that will create problems. So, please recognize that anytime you have an opportunity to check an inlet line to a pump from whatever vessel is feeding the pump to the pump. The line should be uniform in size, if at all possible, so that there are no air pockets to collect. If there is any question at all and an eccentric reducer has to be used for one reason or another, the piping should be reconfigured in such a way that allows the inlet to the pump to be flat and horizontal on top for preferably 15 to 20 diameters upstream of the inlet to the impeller eye. In a situation like that, you can usually trust to good, long-term operation, but anytime an air pocket is allowed to collect in that inlet line, at some point down the line, that air pocket will create a problem. As with our good friend Murphy and all of his explanations before, any problem that occurs will occur at the least opportune time and with the most disastrous potential results. With this, I terminate this discussion of pumps and, of course, along with this will be a short review of some questions and reminders of things that weve talked about on the pump and the various types of pumps. I hope this has been of some help to you.