Ruhrpumpen Pumps Reliability
Ruhrpumpen Pumps Reliability
(OP)
Does anyone have any experience with Ruhrpumpen pumps:
1) Vertical Turbine Pump Type VCT 37KXH - Utilized in below grade cooling tower basin for providing 16,500 GPM of cooling water at 65 psig
2) Horizontal (axial) split case between bearing (non API610) type HSM - Utilized for boiler feedwater duty of 345 GPM / 1635 ft of head (685 psig)
I am trying to get a feel for their reputation/reliability/service in the chemical process or utility industry.
THANKS
1) Vertical Turbine Pump Type VCT 37KXH - Utilized in below grade cooling tower basin for providing 16,500 GPM of cooling water at 65 psig
2) Horizontal (axial) split case between bearing (non API610) type HSM - Utilized for boiler feedwater duty of 345 GPM / 1635 ft of head (685 psig)
I am trying to get a feel for their reputation/reliability/service in the chemical process or utility industry.
THANKS





RE: Ruhrpumpen Pumps Reliability
RE: Ruhrpumpen Pumps Reliability
RE: Ruhrpumpen Pumps Reliability
Johnny Pellin
RE: Ruhrpumpen Pumps Reliability
Thanks for the information.
RE: Ruhrpumpen Pumps Reliability
I am a National Sales Manager for Ruhrpumpen Inc.
I can supply whatever material you may need from our company.
Please feel free to email me aytime at dwaddell@ruhrpumpen.com
RE: Ruhrpumpen Pumps Reliability
Johnny Pellin
RE: Ruhrpumpen Pumps Reliability
What type of MOC did you use for the vertical cooling water pumps?
Our installation will be in a fertilizer facility consisting of ammonia, nitric acid, and ammonium nitrate plants.
We are considering Cast Iron Case with 12% chrome impeller (A487 CA6NM) to avoid rusting / corrosion.
Bronze alloys are not acceptable due to presence of trace NH3 (20 PPM max) in cooling water return
THANKS
RE: Ruhrpumpen Pumps Reliability
Johnny Pellin
RE: Ruhrpumpen Pumps Reliability
RE: Ruhrpumpen Pumps Reliability
Please understand that any pump is only as good as the application it is designed for. I understand your concerns, as well as everyone else's. May I say that Ruhrpumpen's "standard" built pumps (37KXH and the HSM among others) have a very good reputation through out the industries. As for the special build pumps , such as JJPellin's experience, we have had very good success with as well, and I am discourage to read a situation such as he experienced.
Since 2008 we have made tremendous changes in our quality control department an continue to do so.
RE: Ruhrpumpen Pumps Reliability
"........... We took these additional precautions because were installing new, larger pumps in existing sumps and were concerned about unanticipated cavitation because of the sump geometry."
Do you really mean cavitation in its real sense or anticipated poor entry conditions to the pump inlets - which would be a worry if installing larger pumps in an existing sump.
Ian
It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. (Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia.)
RE: Ruhrpumpen Pumps Reliability
rmw
RE: Ruhrpumpen Pumps Reliability
For me, cavitation is cavitation, a result of a conflict in NPSHa/r where as vortexing is a different animal and an unrelated problem, although a condition which is possible even with adequate NPSHa/r margins.
It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. (Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia.)
RE: Ruhrpumpen Pumps Reliability
Larger pumps in an existing sump inferred less than optimal sump design. Cooling water reference using verticals inferred temperatures not usually associated with cavitation issues otherwise. Suction bells inferred verticals (whole thread is mostly about verticals). Specially designed strainers designed to prevent pre-rotation... obviously vortex formation prevention.
All that said vortexing to me and not cavitation potential unless the reference to cavitation was made to what happens next when air bubbles do get ingested into a pump suction, but I am a learner here.
rmw
RE: Ruhrpumpen Pumps Reliability
The matter of air ingestion and cavitation have been discussed at length in a couple of other posts - if of interest to you. No point is restarting the discussion here.
It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. (Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia.)
RE: Ruhrpumpen Pumps Reliability
I realise this is well away fromm the OP's subject of pump reliabilty - but have attached a link air entrainment and cavitation anyway.
http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=285396
It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. (Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia.)
RE: Ruhrpumpen Pumps Reliability
Once while in a meeting at a major consulting firm, I witnessed a group of B-J product executives and their sales people get up to walk out of a meeting where the consultant's engineers were about to ignore their requirements for a properly designed sump and make a serious mistake. It was a good lesson to this young engineer and a good example of a company more concerned about its reputation than just making a sale. When the engineers at the consulting house saw that they were that serious, they relented, everone sat back down, and then we all got a good tutorial on why the rules are what they are for sump design. As part of that crowd, I learned a lot that day.
Now, regarding the thread you referenced, I read through all of it - the whole food fight - and am sorry I missed it at the time. I would have weighed in about the third or fourth post from the last and reminded readers of Henry's law, but you did finally get to that science in the last post even if you didn't call Sir Henry by name.
Dissolved air can appear mid stream if something (a bend, a strainer, a control valve etc.) lowers the total presure below the saturation pressure of any of the dissolved gasses (air being a common one) enough for the gas(es) to come out of solution. The link in the last post didn't work, but the quoted words covered it. I disagree with the "...if at all" statement if the presure rise across the pump is high enough and there is sufficient length of pipe at discharge pressure for the gas(es) to redissolve. Under those conditions the air will go back into solution readily. I deal daily with a closed loop CW process where the air is in a constant "do loop" coming out of solution in the low pressure of the pump suction, making a lot of racket in the pump, and then going back into solution downstream of the pump. We have another variation of that same closed loop where there the opportunity for the piping to 'burp' the air exists while it is still in bubble form and after a while the water becomes fairly deaerated and the noise quits.
rmw
RE: Ruhrpumpen Pumps Reliability
Johnny Pellin