Engineering Utilities 1:

Basic Mechanical Engineering

PUMP

Submitted to:

Engr. Kevin Dustin Castillo

Instructor

Submitted by:

Maricris C. Lustañas

BSCE-CEM III

November 13, 2023

The History of Pumps: Through the Years

 2000 BC Egyptians invent the shadoof to raise water. It uses a long suspended
rod with a bucket at one end and a weight at the other.

 200 BC Greek inventor and mathematician Ctesibius invents the water organ, an
air pump with valves on the bottom, a tank of water in between them and a row
of pipes on top. This is the principal design that is now known as the
reciprocating pump.

 200 BC Archimedean screw pump is designed by Archimedes is considered one

of the greatest inventions of all time and is still in use today for pumping liquids
and granulated solids in both the industrialized world and in the third
world—where it is a preferred way to irrigate agricultural fields without electrical
pumps.

 1475 According to Reti, the Brazilian soldier and historian of science, the first
machine that could be characterized as a centrifugal pump was a mud lifting
machine that appeared in a treatise by the Italian Renaissance engineer
Francesco di Giorgio Martini.

 1588 Sliding vane water pump technology is described by Italian engineer

Agostino Ramelli in his book “The Diverse and Artifactitious Machines of Captain
Agostino Ramelli,” which also included other pump and engine designs.

 1593 Frenchman Nicolas Grollier de Servière creates an early design for a gear
pump.

 1636 Pappenheim, a German engineer, invents the double deep-toothed rotary

gear pump, which is still used to lubricate engines. This gear pump made it
possible to dispense with the reciprocating slide valves used by Ramelli.
Pappenheim drove his machine by an overshot water wheel set in motion by a
stream and was used to feed water fountains. The emperor Ferdinand II granted
him a “privilege” - the equivalent of a patent - in respect of this invention.

 1650 Otto van Guericke invents the piston vacuum pump, which used leather
washers to prevent leakage between the cylinder and the piston.

 1675 Sir Samuel Moreland—an English academic, diplomat, spy, inventor and
mathematician—patents the
Peerless large split case design from the
packed plunger pump, capable
1940s being installed in the field. Peerless
of raising great quantities of
Pump photo courtesy of Grundfos.
water with far less proportion of
strength than a chain or other
pump. The piston had a leather
seal. Moreland's pump may have
been the first use of a piston rod
and stuffing box (packed in a
cylinder) to displace water.

 1687 French-born inventor Denis

Papin develops the first true
centrifugal pump, one with
straight vanes used for local
 drainage.

 1738 In fluid dynamics, Bernoulli's principle states that for an inviscid flow, an
increase in the speed of the fluid occurs simultaneously with a decrease in
pressure or a decrease in the fluid's potential energy. It is named after the Dutch-
Swiss mathematician Daniel Bernoulli, who published it in a book
“Hydrodynamica.” The principle is applied to various types of fluid flow and is
loosely known as Bernoulli's equation.

 1782 James Watt—who invented the steam engine's connecting rod crank
mechanism, which made it possible to convert the piston's reciprocating motion
into rotary motion—designs an oscillating piston machine in which a wing-shaped
rotary blade made a near complete revolution uncovering inlet ports in a chamber
separated by a curved radial wall.

 1790 Briton Thomas Simpson harnesses steam power to pumping engines for
municipal water applications and founds the London company Simpson and
Thompson Co. (predecessor to Worthington Simpson).

 1830 Modern screw pump is invented by Revillion.

 1845 Henry R. Worthington invents the first direct-acting steam pumping engine.
Worthington Pump designed its first products to power canal boats and U.S.
naval vessels. Worthington later pioneered pump designs for boiler feed, oil
pipeline and hydro-electric applications.

 1848 In Seneca Falls, N.Y., Seabury S. Gould purchases the interests of Edward
Mynderse and H.C. Silsby in Downs, Mynderse & Co., forming Downs & Co., later
known as Goulds Manufacturing Company.

 1849 Goulds casts and assembles the world's first all-metal pump.

 1851 British inventor John Appold introduces the curved vane centrifugal pump.

Seabury S. Gould,  1851 John Gwynne files his first

1848. Photo centrifugal pump patent. His early pumps were
courtesy of Goulds used primarily for land drainage, and many can
Pumps. still be seen today in pump house museums.
They were usually powered by Gwynnes' steam
engines. By the end of the 19th century, Gwynne
was producing pumps of all sizes to cover all
industrial applications, from small electric
pumps to those rated at 1,000 tons per minute.
His company had also begun to produce
scientific pumps, e.g., porcelain pumps for
chemical works. In the 1930s they were producing almost 1,000 different models.

 1857 Worthington produces the first horizontal, duplex, direct-acting steam

pumps for boiler feed.

 1859 Jacob Edson invents the diaphragm pump and founds the Edson
Corporation in Boston, Mass., to manufacture and sell his pump.

 1860 Adam Cameron founds the Cameron Steam Pump Works, and becomes
another pioneer in reciprocating steam pump engines. Like Worthington,
 Cameron's first products were used to power merchant marine and U.S. naval
vessels. Cameron pumps were later applied in water resources, oil pipeline and
refining and boiler feed.

 1868 Stork Pompen of Hengelo, Netherlands, pioneers the concrete volute pump
for water drainage.

 1869 Downs & Company changes its name to Goulds Manufacturing Company.

 1870 UK Professor Osborne Reynolds develops an original design of a centrifugal

pump.

 1871 Johannes Klein receives a patent on his “boiler feed apparatus.” With
Friedrich Schanzlin and Jakob Becker, he founds the company “Frankenthaler
Maschinen- & Armatur-Fabrik Klein, Schanzlin & Becker” (now known as KSB) to
manufacture boiler feed equipment and valves.

 1874 Charles Barnes of New Brunswick invents the vane pump.

 1874 Wilson-Snyder grows into the premier line of slurry, pipeline and refinery
pumps.

 1874 Gotthard Allweiler invents and produces a series of hand wing pumps.

 1886 Jens Nielsen, founder of Viking Pump Company, invents the internal gear
pumping principal while designing a pump to remove excess water that was
seeping into his limestone quarry from a nearby creek.

 1886 United Centrifugal Pumps is incorporated. It becomes the world's foremost

supplier of high-pressure crude oil and refined product pipeline pumps.

 1897 Preston K. Wood makes the A single and two stage pipeline pump
first deep well turbine pump in Los assembly in the 1960s at the
Angeles, Calif. Ruhrpumpen plant in Witten, Germany.
Photo courtesy of Ruhrpumpen.
 1899 Robert Blackmer invents
rotary vane pump technology, a
pump design that was an
important departure from the old
gear principle and predecessor to
today's sliding vane pumps.

 1900 Siemens files the first

German patent for liquid ring
vacuum pumps and compressors.

 1901 Byron Jackson develops the first deep well vertical turbine pump.

 1902 Aldrich Pump Company begins manufacturing the world's first line of
reciprocating positive displacement pumps for steel mills and mine dewatering.

 1904 Jens Nielsen enlists George “Shorty” Mathes to construct his gear pump
design.

 1905 Multistage centrifugal pumps are developed.

 1905 Two Goulds triplex pumps are installed in the New York Times building,
accomplishing the highest lift of water to date—387 feet, 6 inches.

 1906 André Petit invents the eccentric disc pump and starts his company,
Mouvex, in Paris.

 1908 Western Land Roller pioneers the design and manufacture of irrigation
pumps.

 1908 Hayward Tyler creates its first electric motor for use under water and
develops the wet stator motor for use as a boiler circulation glandless motor-
pump.

 1910 Lewis H. Nash files the first U.S. patent for liquid ring vacuum pumps and
compressors.

 1911 Jens Nielsen builds the first internal gear pump, founding the Viking Pump
Company. The Viking Rotary “Gear-Within-A-Gear” pump (the first of its kind) is
placed on the market.

 1912 Durion, a universally corrosion-resistant material, is invented by the Duriron

Castings Company (later known as Durco Pump) and is applied to process
equipment.

 1913 Inventor and engineer Albert Baldwin Wood invents the Wood screw pump.

 1915 Viking Pump Company wins the Panama Pacific Award for internal gear
design.

 1915 Albert Baldwin Wood invents the Wood trash pump. Wood spearheads the
reclamation from swamp and the efforts to develop much of the land now
occupied by the city of New Orleans. Some of Wood's pumps have been in
continuous use for more than 80 years without need of repairs. New ones
continue to be built from his designs.

 1916 Aldrich produces the first direct motor-driven reciprocating pump.

 1916 While Armais Sergeevich Arutunoff first invented submersible pumps in

Russia in 1916, their use in the United States did not begin until the 1950s.
Arutunoff first designed his pump for use in ships, water wells and mines. He
altered the design to work in oil wells. Thanks to further refinements to
Arutunoff's design, there are more types of submersible pumps, allowing use in
other applications such as pumping drinking water, creating fountains and
pumping wastewater.

 1916 The first DORRCOTM Suction Pump is built by Dorr-Oliver Pump Company
for the mineral process industry.

 1917 Hydraulic Institute is established.

 1917 Louis Bergeron invents the concrete volute pump and founds Bergeron S.A.

 1918 Byron Jackson produces the first hot oil pumps for the petroleum industry.


 1920 Viking builds its first domestic oil burner pump using a mechanical seal.

 1921 Harry LaBour founds LaBour Pump Company. A pioneer in the development
of pumps for the chemical industry, LaBour developed corrosion-resistant alloys
to incorporate into his pumps. Until his time, sulfuric acid was always pumped
with lead pumps, the only known material that could handle certain
concentrations of the acid.

 1921 Jeumont-Schneider begins manufacturing water and slurry pumps in

Jeumont, France. It later develops solids-handling pumps and segmental ring
section multistage pumps.

 1921 Dorr-Oliver Pump Company develops the OLIVITE series of centrifugals for
slurry transfer.

 1923 Byron Jackson demonstrates the first use of centrifugal pumps for oil
pipeline and the first automatic booster station.

 1923 Ruthman Companies designs the world’s first sealless vertical pump.

 1924 Durco Pump introduces the world's first pump specifically designed for
chemical processing. It would go on to establish undisputed global leadership in
ANSI pump design.

 1926 Pacific Pump Company produces the first hot oil double casing pump.

 1926 O.H. Dorer receives a patent for the first inducer, which reduces the
required NPSH. Inducers did not become incorporated into standard pump lines
until the 1960s.

 1927 Viking introduces a line of hazardous liquid pumps for use in the fuel oil
market.

 1927 Aldrich produces the first variable stroke multi-cylinder reciprocating pump.

 1928 Worthington-Simpson produces the world's largest steam-driven pumping

engine for municipal water supply.

 1929 Pleuger incorporates in Berlin, Germany. Its first offerings are submersible
motor pumps for dewatering in the construction of underground railways and
subways. Pleuger pioneers the first successful application of submersible motor
pumps in offshore service.

 1929 Byron Jackson uses the first double casing feed pump in a power plant.

 1929 Stork Pompen produces the first concrete volute pump for drainage,
integrating the pump housing in the civil construction of the pumping station.

 1930 While inventing a compressor for jet engines, aviation pioneer René
Moineau discovers that this principle could also work as a pumping system.The
University of Paris awarded Moineau a doctorate of science for his thesis on “the
new capsulism.” His pioneering dissertation laid the groundwork for the
progressing cavity pump.

 1933 The original version of the Bush Pump is designed as a closed-top cylinder
pump. In 1960 the design was modernized. The base of the well was from then
 on bolted to the well casing and got its current name, The Zimbabwe Bush Pump,
the National Standard for hand pumps in Zimbabwe. After Zimbabwe's
independence in 1980, the government creates its own modernized version of
the pump, B-type Zimbabwe Bush Pump. The pump is today regarded as a
national treasure. In 1997, it was pictured on a postal stamp.

 1933 J.C. Gorman and Herb Rupp introduce a pump with a “non-clogging” feature.
It outperforms any other self-priming centrifugal pump previously invented. The
company Gorman-Rupp is established.

 1936 Robert Sheen invents the metering pump. The core of his invention was a
method of controlled volume that was inherent to the pump. The first pumps
were assembled in the basement of his father, Milton Roy Sheen's, home, where
the initial patterns for castings were made.

 1936 Robbins & Myers acquires the North American license for the Moineau
progressing cavity pump and brands it with the name Moyno.

 1937 IDP produces the first radially split, pull-from-the-rear process pump.

 1937 Worthington produces the world's first hydraulic decoking systems.

 1937-1939 Smith Precision Products Company (Smith Pumps) designs three

pumps, two of which (models 300 and 200) were specifically designed for LP-gas
transfer.

 1939 Durco invents Alloy 20, which is the standard industrial material for
corrosive surfaces.

 1939 Dorr-Oliver Pump Company develops the Oliver Diaphragm Slurry pump for
slurry transfer. Originally designed for mining slurry transfer with their associated
acids, it developed into a Primary Sludge Underflow Pump for the wastewater
industry starting in the 1970s after the Clean Water Act.

 1939 Smith Precision Products Company develops the first liquefied gas transfer
pump for LP-gas.

 1940 Reuben Smith, of Smith Precision Products Company (Smith Pumps),

receives the first approval for an LP-gas pump from the California Industrial
Accident Commission. This was for the model 4X pump and the approval was a
"suitable for use" certificate.

 1941 British Pump Manufacturers Association is founded.

 1942 The Gorman-Rupp team creates the first commercially available solids-
handling trash pump to respond to the contractor's need for a pump to withstand
the considerable rigors of pumping out trash-laden septic tanks, cesspools and
outhouses.

 1944 During World War II, Goulds extra-quiet trim pumps are installed in every
U.S. Navy submarine. That year, 157 Goulds men went to war and 157 women
took their places on the Goulds manufacturing floor. Goulds earned the
prestigious Army-Navy “E” Award that year for outstanding production of war
materials.
 1947 Flygt's Sixten Englesson, a master of engineering, develops a prototype for
the first submersible drainage pump, which is later known as the “parrot cage,” or
B-pump, used in mining for construction.

 1948 Smith Precision Products Company receives the patent for the first
mechanical seal supplied for liquefied gas transfer pumps. It was first put into
production in 1947.

 1949 HMD Pumps invents and engineers the world's first magnet drive pump.

 1950 Vanton develops the Flex-i-liner sealless self-priming rotary pump which
handles corrosive, abrasive and viscous fluids as well as those that must be
transferred free of product contamination.

 1954 World’s first atomic-powered submarine is equipped with Ingersoll-Rand

boiler-feed pumps and compressors.

 1954 Blackmer invents and manufactures a positive displacement pump for

liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

 1954 Smith Precision Products Company (Smith Pumps) begins working with the
Underwriters Laboratories to develop their first Standard for liquefied gas pumps,
UL-51, which is still in use today.

 1954 Worthington produces the world's first high speed (9,000 rpm) boiler feed
pumps.

 1955 Jim Wilden

invents the air-operated
double-diaphragm (AODD)
pump technology.

 1956 Sixten
Englesson develops for
Stenberg-Flygt AB the
submersible sewage pump,
called the C-pump, with a
In 1955, Jim Wilden invented air-operated discharge connection and
double-diaphragm pump technology. It had level regulator.
the right air valve and diaphragms needed
and was tough and versatile enough to meet  1956 Smith &
the stringent demands of the mining and Loveless engineer Frank
heavy-construction industries. During the Weis develops the water
1980s, Wilden introduced plastic AODD industry's first true solids
pumps that have the ability to stand up to the handling, non-clog pump.
harsh operating conditions and corrosive
media transferred throughout the global  1957 Ruhrpumpen
chemical market. Photo courtest of Wilden. Gmbh begins the
production of process
pumps under the license of
Pacific.

 1959 Viking Pump Company launches abrasive liquid heavy-duty pumps and
handles the printing ink for more than half of the major U.S. newspapers.
 1960s New lines of industrial pumps are developed by Goulds Pumps, including
large double suction pumps, higher pressure pumps and non-metallic pumps. In
home water systems, the jet water system is improved and a complete line of
submersible pumps is completed.

 1960 Europump is established.

 1960 Development of GIW trademark GASITE hard iron for longer wearing pumps
and parts.

 1960 Hydraulic Slide Rule invented and copyrighted by GIW vice president and
inventor Danforth Hagler.

 1962 Sundstrand develops the first Sundyne high-speed centrifugal pump and
sells it to Shell Chemical.

 1962 Grundfos places the first circulator pump into the market with variable
speed regulation.

 1964 In cooperation with German chemical companies, KSB develops the CPK
standardized chemical pump series to satisfy a newly-published standard.

 1965 Warren Rupp's heavy-duty, diverse AODD pump is introduced to the

industrial market to address the vigorous demands of the steel mills and other
industrial market applications.

 1968 Durco produces the first fully-lined PTFE chemical processing pump.

Left: Blackmer sliding vane hand pumps used for the transfer of solvents by Pan
Am in the 1950s. Photo courtest of Blackmer.

Right: Marvin and Kathryn Summerfield founded Cascade Pump Company in

1948. They are pictured here at an industry tradeshow in the early 1950s. Photo
courtesy of Cascade Pump Company.

 1968 Gorman-Rupp produces the first fiberglass, below-ground, factory-built

sewage pumping station.

 1968 The ownership of Stenberg-Flygt AB is transferred to the American

multinational enterprise ITT (International Telephone & Telegraph Corporation).
Prior to this transfer, Stenberg-Flygt AB, AB Flygts Pumpar and Flygt International
AB are consolidated as a single company.

 1969 Mouvex launches the first sealless rotary pump not based on magnets.
 1969 Gusher designs the 7800 series for the filter & washer industry.

 1970s Viking introduces spur gear line of pumps, which is the company's largest
selling OEM pump.

 1970s Gorman-Rupp invents the bellows-metering pump and the oscillating

pump, while the Mansfield Division acquires the Roto-Prime pump.

 1970 Smith & Loveless engineer Frank Weis designs the first-ever above-grade
sewage pump lift station.

 1971 Gusher develops a purge hole system that enabled pumps to handle up to
30 to 40 percent entrained air.

 1973 Frank Weis pioneers the first-ever vortex grit removal system for
wastewater treatment plants.

 1973 KSB launches the BOA-H, the first maintenance-free, standard cast iron
valve.

 1978 KSB puts the BOA-W line onto the valve market. The first soft-seated
standard valve is able to cope with dirt in the fluid.

 1979 Gusher develops multistage pumps for higher pressures required by the
machine tool industry and the worlds first top pull-out pump.

 1980s Viking introduces the Universal Seal and Viking Mag Drive lines of internal
gear pumps—both the first of their kind in the industry.

 1980s Gorman-Rupp unveils the nutating pump, a special purpose small pump
used in health care applications; additional energy-efficient, self-priming
centrifugal pumps; a series of lightweight portable pumps and high-pressure
pumps with the first digital-control panels.

 1980s Electronic controls enter the industry to make pumps more energy
efficient.

 1980s GIW develops wear modeling technology for predicting pump performance.

 1984 First Texas A&M Pump Users Symposium is held.

 1984 Scienco produces the first specialized positive displacement pumps

specifically designed for agricultural applications.

 1985 Sims manufactures the first structural composite pump, all Simsite Vertical
Pit Pump. Sims later won the Innovative Product Award for these products in
1990.

 1989 Sier-Bath incorporates the first application of multiphase pumps in paper

stock.

 1990s First hard metal slurry pump for hydraulic transport of oil sands tallings.

 1994 Two new major products are introduced by Goulds Pumps, the Industrial
Model 3298 Magnetic Drive Pump and the Water Technologies Model GS “Global
Submersible.”
 1994 Sims receives the honor of approval from the United States Navy for
composite centrifugal pump intervals. Simsite was tested and qualified for
centrifugal pump replacement parts and was the first composite to be certified.

 1994 Baha Abulnaga invents the slurry and froth pump with a split vane impeller.
The split impeller helps to reduce recirculation in slurry pumps by dividing the
space between the main vanes without reducing the passageway at the
narrowest point, which is the eye of the impeller. In froth pumps, it helps to break
up air bubbles that form and tend to block the flow.

 1995 Sims manufactures the largest structural composite pumps in the world -
two Simsite vertical turbine pumps for Potomac Electric Power Company. They
are 40 feet long and 3 feet in diameter.

 1997 ITT Industries acquires

Goulds Pumps, making ITT the
world's largest pump company.

 1999 PumpSmart is introduced at

the ChemShow in New York.

 2000s Computer designed LCC

rubber-lined pump introduced to
In 1933, J.C. Gorman and Herb Rupp
the market by GIW.
introduced a pump which had a "non-
 2000s Innovated “slurry diverter” clogging" feature. Their competitors
developed by GIW to improve claimed the pump would not work in a
wear. savage public awareness campaign to
discredit the new design, which resulted
 2001 Flowserve introduces its in about $100,00 worth of "free
MSP (medium speed pump) with advertising." At least one customer was
variable frequency drive. willing to try it. National Ice Company
purchased the first pump, and the
 2001 KSB presents the first company Gorman-Rupp was established.
"intelligent" submersible motor Photo courtesy of Gorman-Rupp
pump. Ama-Porter ICS is sensor- Company.
controlled and needs no float
switches.

 2002 Siemens (elmo division, liquid ring pumps) merges with Nash. Also Sims
introduces the first structural composite vertical in-line pumps.

 2003 Sims becomes the first company to have composite pumps and baseplates,
shock and vibration qualified by the United States Navy.

 2006 Sims manufactures the largest structural composite centrifugal impeller in

the world. This huge impeller was installed in a cooling tower pump for Puerto
Rican Electrical Power Company. It is 50 inches in diameter and consumes 2,000
horsepower.

 2006 Allweiler designs and produces a high-tech EMTEC-A pump designed

specifically for moving emulsions and cooling lubricants.

 2008 Dover Corporation creates The Pump Solutions Group, a conglomeration of

Wilden, Blackmer, Mouvex, Neptune, Almatec and Griswold pump companies.
  2010 Sims designs and engineers the first structural composite anti-heeling
pump manufactured for NCL Cruise lines.

 2011 ITT Corporations spins off into three separately traded companies, creating
Xylem, Inc., the world's largest water technology company.

Pump

 a device that expends energy in order to raise, transport, or compress fluids.

Pump Applications

Some types of pumps can be classified and selected based on the application they are
designed for. Specifically, they can be defined by the function they perform or the types
of media they are suited to handle.

Function

Pumps that are defined by function are designed to perform in a certain way or for a
certain type of system or environment.

Pump Type Description

Booster Pumps Used in applications where the normal system pressure is

low and needs to be increased.

Dosing Pumps Low-volume fluid pumps with controllable discharge rates

used to inject additives into the mixing or pumping
system.

Drum Pumps Used to transfer materials from a container (drum) into a

process or other container.

Fountain Pumps Designed to supply flow to fountains used for aesthetic

purposes and aeration in residential, commercial, and
industrial reservoirs and bodies of water.

Grinder Pumps Centrifugal pumps equipped with shredding systems to

aid in the transport of solids filled media.

Injection Pumps Positive displacement pumps designed to inject measured

amounts of fluid into a reservoir or production system.

Metering Pumps Positive displacement pumps designed to dispense

precise amounts of fluids and measured flow control.

Sampling Pumps Used to intermittently or continuously pump small sample

volumes from large liquid, air, and gas flow streams for
monitoring and testing.

Sump Pumps Used in applications where excess water must be pumped

away from a particular area.

Syringe Pumps Used to deliver precise amounts of fluid at specific time

intervals for high accuracy applications such as high
performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).
Utility Pumps Used in many applications such as dewatering low-lying
areas, pool covers, and sumps. They are not designed for
continuous use.

Vacuum Pumps Provide sub-atmospheric pressure for a variety of

industrial and scientific applications where a vacuum is
 Mechanical required.
 Rotary Vane

Well Pumps Used to bring water from wells and springs to surface
level.

Media

Pumps that are defined by media are designed to handle certain types of media or fluids
with specific properties or characteristics.

Pump Type Description

Chemical Pumps Designed for applications that require greater durability

and resistance to corrosive media.

Condensate Pumps Used to collect and transport condensate back into a

steam system for reheating and reuse, or to remove
unwanted condensate from an HVAC or appliance
collection pan.

Cryogenic Pumps Designed to move coolants and cryogenic liquids, and

built to withstand and operate in extremely cold
temperatures.

Hydraulic Pumps Designed to pump hydraulic fluid at high pressures in

order to do work in hydraulic systems.

Sewage Pumps Used to pump effluents, semi-solids, and small solids in

liquids.

Slurry Pumps Used to pump thick, viscous mixtures of liquid (usually

water) and pulverized solids.

Trash Pumps Designed to pump large amounts of water that contains

hard and soft solids such as mud, leaves, twigs, sand, and
sludge.

Wastewater Pumps Used in the collection of sewage, effluent, drainage, and

seepage water.

Water Pumps Designed to move water that does not contain suspended
solids or particulates.
How To Size A Pump

To size a pump, you must define:

 The flow rate of liquid the pump is required to deliver

 The total differential head the pump must generate to deliver the required flow
rate
This is the case for all types of pumps: centrifugal or positive displacement.

Other key considerations for pump sizing are the net positive suction head available
(NPSHa) and the power required to drive the pump.

Pump System Diagram

Flow Rate
Usually, the flow rate of liquid a pump needs to deliver is determined by the
process in which the pump is installed. This ultimately is defined by the mass and
energy balance of the process.

For instance the required flow rate of a pump feeding oil into a refinery distillation
column will be determined by how much product the column is required to produce.
Another example is the flow rate of a cooling water pump circulating water through a
heat exchanger is defined by the amount of heat transfer required.

Total Differential Head

The total differential head a pump must generate is determined by the flow rate
of liquid being pumped and the system through which the liquid flows.

Essentially, the total differential head is made up of 2 components. The first is

the static head across the pump and the second is the frictional head loss through the
suction and discharge piping systems.

Total differential head = static head difference + frictional head losses

Static Head Difference

The static head difference across the pump is the difference in head between the
discharge static head and the suction static head.

Static head difference = discharge static head – suction static head

Discharge Static Head

The discharge static head is sum of the gas pressure at the surface of the liquid
in the discharge vessel (expressed as head rather than pressure) and the difference in
elevation between the outlet of the discharge pipe, and the centre line of the pump.

Discharge static head = Discharge vessel gas pressure head + elevation of discharge
pipe outlet – elevation of pump centre line
 The discharge pipe outlet may be above the surface of the liquid in the discharge
vessel or it may be submerged as shown in these 3 diagrams.

 Pump Discharge Above

Liquid Surface

 Submerged Pump
Discharge Pipe

 Discharge Pipe Enters The

Bottom Of The Vessel

Suction Static Head

The suction static head is sum of the gas pressure at the surface of the liquid in
the suction vessel (expressed as head rather than pressure) and the difference in
elevation between the surface of the liquid in the suction vessel and the centre line of
the pump.

Suction static head = Suction vessel gas pressure head + elevation of suction vessel
liquid surface – elevation of pump centre line

Note: gas pressure can be converted to head using: Gas head = gas pressure ÷ (liquid
density x acceleration due to gravity)

 Pump Suction
Frictional Head Losses

The total frictional head losses in a system are comprised of the frictional losses
in the suction piping system and the frictional losses in the discharge piping system.

Frictional head losses = frictional losses in suction piping system + frictional losses in
discharge piping system

The frictional losses in the suction and discharge piping systems are the sum of
the frictional losses due to the liquid flowing through the pipes, fittings and equipment.
The frictional head losses are usually calculated from the Darcy-Weisbach equation
using friction factors and fittings factors to calculate the pressure loss in pipes and
fittings.

Darcy-Weisbach equation:

In order to calculate the frictional head losses you therefore need to know the
lengths and diameters of the piping in the system and the number and type of fittings
such as bends, valves and other equipment.

Net Positive Suction Head Available

The net positive suction head available (NPSHa) is the difference between the
absolute pressure at the pump suction and the vapour pressure of the pumped liquid at
the pumping temperature.

It is important because for the pump to operate properly, the pressure at the
pump suction must exceed the vapour pressure for the pumped fluid to remain liquid in
the pump. If the vapour pressure exceeds the pressure at the pump suction, vapour
bubbles will form in the liquid. This is known as cavitation and leads to a loss of pump
efficiency and can result in significant pump damage.

To ensure that the pump operates correctly the net positive suction head
available (NPSHa) must exceed the net positive suction head required (NPSHr) for that
particular pump. The NPSHr is given by the pump manufacturer and is often shown on
the pump curve.

Net positive suction head available = absolute pressure head at the pump suction
– liquid vapour pressure head

Pump Power

Pumps are usually driven by electric motors, diesel engines or steam turbines.
Determining the power required is essential to sizing the pump driver.
 Pump power = flow rate x total differential head x liquid density x acceleration due to
gravity ÷ pump efficiency

How To Size A Pump Example

Let’s look at an example to demonstrate how to size a pump.

 30000 kg/hr of water needs to be pumped from one vessel to another through
the system shown in the diagram below. The water is at 20C, has a density of
998 kg/m3 , a vapour pressure of 0.023 bara and a viscosity of 1cP. We’ll
assume that the pump efficiency is 70%.

Calculation:
Results

Pump flow rate = 30 m3/hr

Pump total differential head = 134.8 m

Net positive suction head available = 22.13 m

Pump power = 15.7 kW

REFERENCES:

https://www.pumpsandsystems.com/history-pumps-through-years

https://www.britannica.com/technology/pump/Positive-displacement-pumps

https://www.globalspec.com/pfdetail/pumps/applications

https://www.blackmonkengineering.com/how-to-size-a-pump.html