This article will define a business case for achieving significant rotating equipment maintenance and energy cost reduction at industrial and municipal facilities.
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The second part of this three-part series explores the types of protection applied to specific equipment installed at water and wastewater facilities and some typical criteria used to develop protective settings.
Last month, we ended our discussion of proportional control by saying there are times when P alone cannot provide the accuracy required by a process. Take, for example, a constant pressure booster system under VFD control. If changes in flow and the resulting change in pressure occurred gradually over a long period of time, the VFD could use proportional control to keep pressure constant.
Wireless control and monitoring are a vital part of pump systems.
Today's lean maintenance staff needs pump and motor protective devices that diagnose and predict problems before they become acute.
Paddle wheel flow sensors not only continue to remain strong in industrial applications, their use is growing. Because these devices offer the lowest cost per sensing point of any flow measurement technology, users can save significantly on purchase, installation and maintenance costs.
A successful infrared program involves planning and action. This article outlines steps that will help you implement a thermography program.
A Nashville-based hunting club required the flooding of several acres of land. A shallow area approximately 1.5-ft deep needed to be flooded to help attract wild game.
Last year in “Trending Revelations in Vibration Analysis,” (Pumps & Systems, June 2009), I discussed the importance of statistic trending in vibrations analysis. Usually, as most would expect, vibrations gradually increase with time. This increase reflects the normal internal wear, accumulative misalignment and deformations that can occur within a pump. All these wear conditions will lead to eventual failure.
Over the past 50 years, advances in technology have provided the primary thrust behind the success and evolution of variable-speed drive systems. Here are some considerations for the proper selection and set up of different types of systems, and what lies ahead in the future.
Latest Instrumentation Articles
This article will define a business case for achieving significant rotating equipment maintenance and energy cost reduction at industrial and municipal facilities.
Production, distribution and refining applications in the oil and gas industry rely heavily on motor-driven pumps and pumping systems. Keeping electric motors driving critical operations at peak performance is vital to ensure maximum profitability.
Gulf Chemical & Metallurgical Corporation (Freeport, Texas), a subsidiary of the Eramet Group, is a recycler of spent petroleum catalysts and a leading producer of ferroalloys. The company applies hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical operations to recover molybdenum, vanadium, nickel and cobalt for reuse by major catalyst producers and steel manufacturers. Embarking on the road to improved equipment reliability represents a key aspect of a concerted strategic initiative for Gulf Chemical. The introduction of wireless technology and additional support has yielded successful outcomes for its facility.
Sensors and automation passively participate in our everyday lives to improve comfort, add safety and reliability, and increase the efficiency of needed products and services. As the use of sensors and automation has proliferated throughout various industry sectors, these products have become reliable, economical and easy to maintain and service. Experienced personnel and suppliers can create, adapt or integrate their products and services for almost any application. The challenge becomes how we collect, correlate and translate this data into actionable information.
Explore the current condition of SCADA reports and some new technology that will improve the quality of those reports.
Monitoring vibration—a valuable tool in predictive/preventive maintenance programs
While driving a car with the gas pedal to the floor and then controlling your speed using the brake is obviously inefficient, many facilities use the approach for pump control. Flow control with throttling or restrictive devices sacrifices energy efficiency and results in unnecessary costs. However, with an understanding of basic principles, an analysis of the specific application, information about available control solutions and evaluation of technologically advanced equipment, facilities can make a quantum leap in improving the efficiency and economy of pumping operations.
Lubricated machines require clean, dry oil to work properly. Recent studies have determined that as much as 80 percent of all failures and wear problems that hydraulic and lubricated equipment experience are due to oil contamination. The most damaging forms of contamination are particulates and moisture.
When it comes to pressure and flow, variable speed pumping applications can be divided into three basic categories. Constant pressure-variable flow (Cp-Vf) attempts to keep pressure relatively constant over a range of flows. Constant flow-variable pressure (Cf-Vp) tries to achieve the opposite by using varying pressure to keep flow constant. Variable pressure-variable flow (Vp-Vf) applications can accommodate a change in both.
Pulsation and water hammer can be limited with proper forethought and equipment.
Columns and Blogs
In this multi-part series, we will investigate several aspects of centrifugal pump efficiency.
First of Five Parts
Since the original publication of this draft standard in the January 2008 issue of Pumps & Systems, I have received feedback, encouragement, numerous questions and criticism. The draft listed three basic levels of repair.
The McGraw-Hill scientific dictionary [5] states that a volute is "a spiral casing for a centrifugal pump... designed so that speed will be converted to pressure."
