centrifugal pump booster
centrifugal pump booster
(OP)
I've worked with pumps for years, and always felt that a lot of electricity was used to get the last 5 pounds of pressure, although not much water was pumped. Has anyone seen a fixed displacement booster running off a bleed line feeding back to the intake? I always liked the old piston pumps. For every revolution, you pumped the same amount of water, they would get the last 5 pounds quickly.





RE: centrifugal pump booster
".....and always felt that a lot of electricity was used to get the last 5 pounds of pressure, although not much water was pumped."
This will depend on the pump being used, you cannot blame equipment for faulty selection on your part.
RE: centrifugal pump booster
RE: centrifugal pump booster
RE: centrifugal pump booster
RE: centrifugal pump booster
agmotes
RE: centrifugal pump booster
RE: centrifugal pump booster
I use a lot of diesel-powered hydraulic power units with multiple stacks of positive displacement pumps. The system that you're talking about is a mix of centrifugal and positive displacement, but the theory is the same. At low pressures and high flow rates, I have four pumps running at a total of about 300 gpm at 500 psi. At higher loads, one of the pumps kicks out at about 1000 psi so that all the power from the engine is put into the remaining three pumps. Flow rate is decreased, of course, but this is intuitive -- the system is requiring higher demand because of the higher load, so the system is moving slower. As pressure (and load) becomes greater and greater, additional pumps kick out until only one is left at full 3,000 psi and only 50 gpm. The system is designed so that the pressure-flow curve is matched to the power curve of the engine.*
So, what you're talking about is a tried-and-true means of of matching power to the system and I'd say that you might have an opportunity to save some money.
-T
*As an aside: My power curve could be matched much more closely through the use of variable-displacement pumps, obviously, but since this is mobile equipment that is subject to a ridiculous level of contamination, we don't use VD pumps, since they're much more sensitive to that than gear pumps.
Engineering is not the science behind building things. It is the science behind not building things.
RE: centrifugal pump booster
Adding to this Rube Goldberg device, I've been made aware the startup amps of a house pump is the real consumer of electricity. What if the pressure tank were capable of handling higher pressure? A pressure reducing valve could drop pressure down to safe levels for the house. The two-stage pump could put more water into the same size tank. I know a larger tank would be more practical, but sometimes space is limited, and bigger tanks cost more. The net gain from this would be longer pump runs with fewer startups.