Booster Station Design
Booster Station Design
(OP)
I am a new graduated mechanical Engineer , I have been assigned to do a design for a well facility with a booster station. The well capacity is 250m3/hr , a submersible pump will be used to pump water from the well to 2000m3 balancing tank.after the balancing tank need to supply three areas , the first area need 150m3/hr at 22 bar , the second area need 50 m3/hr at 16 bar , and the third area need 50m3/hr at 10 bar. My question is related to the design of the booster pumps that need to be installed to take water from the tank to the three areas. the first two areas are connected to the same transmission pipeline , the third area is isolated with different pipeline from the first two areas , My question : can I pump water for the first two araes with the same pump , or it is recommended to use two different pumps after isolating both lines ?





RE: Booster Station Design
RE: Booster Station Design
RE: Booster Station Design
Furthermore with reservoirs you will have the problem of one of the reservoirs becoming full and the other still needing supply and a pump sized for both.
Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.- http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: Booster Station Design
However, itsmoked has given good advice - seperate pumps on seperate pipelines - simple and a lot less trouble
RE: Booster Station Design
If you supply from a single pump station then the pump duty point will need to be 250 m3/hr at 22 bar and you will have excess pressure in your two lower systems. If this is a problem you need to add pressure regulators.
RE: Booster Station Design
MY concern about the firet two reas : 150m3/hr at 22 bar AND 50 m3/hr at 16 bar . THE WATER WILL BE PUMPED THROUGH ATRANSMISSION PIPELINE FOR BOTH AREAS RESERVOIR.I KNOW IT IS BETTER TO HAVE TWO DIFFERENT TYPE OF PUMPS WITH TWO LINES , BUT IN CASE I WILL RUN THE SYSTEM WITH THE MAXIMUM CAPACITY PUMP (150m3/hr at 22 bar) , ALL WHAT I NEED TO DO IS TO INSTALL PRESSURE REGULATOR ?
RE: Booster Station Design
It is a fact of life that when you have two or more reservoirs on a system one will stay full and the others empty.
The total flow you have is 250 m3/hour and the maximum dynamic head is 22 bar. That will be your pump duty point. The problem is that if you run at that because you have excess head in the lower reservoirs you will get more flow into these and less in to the top reservoir. Your pump will operate to the right of the duty point (producing more flow at less head). This will happen until the two lower reservoirs are full and close off their inlet control valves. Thereafter all the flow goes to the top reservoir and your pump will operate to the left of the duty point producing higher head and les flow (e.g you could be pumping say 200 m3/hour to the top reservoir at 25 bar - the higher head being lost in friction at the higher flow) and nothing to the other two which are full). On average over a 24 hour period you may get distribution you intended. You would need to draw system curves for each possible operating scenario (flow to all three, flow to 1 and 2 flow to 2 and 3 flow to 1 and 3)
Alternatively you can try and control the flow distribution
1) The simplest solution would be to put orifice plates into the pipelines into the lower reservoirs. Your duty point is 22 bar so you would need orifice plates to lose 22 - 16 = 4 bar to area 2 and 22-10 =12 bar to area 3.
2) Same thing but more accurate and expensive would to provide pressure control or flow control valves to areas 2 and 3.
My solution would be to provide no control and ensure that the pump remains within its duty range when operating under any of the scenarios described above. If need be I would make final adjustments once in operation by adding orifice plates.
The decision between using one pump or separate pumps should be based on costs. Capital costs of 3 pumps are higher but operating costs are less. (With 3 pumps you are pumping only the head that you want for each area whereas with one pump you are having to lose the excess pumping head to the two lower areas)
RE: Booster Station Design
I would add that redundancy may actually be more important than just costs.
Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.- http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: Booster Station Design
A capital / running cost analysis should be one of the first things to do when looking at a pumping project like this, the power costs for running inefficient units resulting from throttling, oriface plates, control valves plus the costs of the control devices etc etc are huge and can far exceed the capital costs of carefully selected single units in very short order.
RE: Booster Station Design
Perhaps reliability and ease of operation or increased functionality could be gained or improved with multiple units too, but 3X the space, 3X the maintenance costs, etc. can offset energy consumption for a considerable length of time, especially if the energy losses can be minimized in any alternative requiring fewer pumps.
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com
RE: Booster Station Design
RE: Booster Station Design
But this seems fairly normal for a lot of questions raised in this forum and the discussions certainly raise many and various approaches of which many are very informative and interesting.
RE: Booster Station Design
RE: Booster Station Design
Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.- http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: Booster Station Design
RE: Booster Station Design
I will make one comment in regard to running the pump's backwards, with the lack of maintenance that is endemic in the region, I would think you would only get 1/3 of the typically very short lifetime out of those pumps. And they probably won't wait for them to stop before flipping the switch to "forward".
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com