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About 900 years before Newton formulated his universal gravitational theory, the Greek philosopher Aristotle espoused something different. He believed that all things had a natural place in the universe, so any object that fell to the earth did so because it had a "need" to return to its natural place. He further theorized that heavier objects would fall faster than lighter ones because they had an even greater need to return. We know now that his theory was a bit off the mark, but had he adapted it to corrosion, it could have described the process quite well.
If any silver linings exist for the economic crisis that has gripped the United States since last summer, one is the heightened public and governmental awareness about the nation's need for infrastructure improvements-a situation that American industry had watched grow without proper attention in recent years.
Materials expand when heated and contract when cooled. Pipes are not immune to these laws of nature, so they will also expand and contract with varying temperature.
With production time and cash flow at an all time premium, more companies are looking for time and cost saving alternatives to replacing slightly damaged assets.
Have you ever wondered why the pressure exerted by a column of liquid has absolutely nothing to do with its volume or, for that matter, the geometric shape of its container?
Two decades ago, EST Associates, Inc. started operations in Needham, Mass., to provide the New England area with environmental sampling and related monitoring services.
Good suction piping design must eliminate air entrainment in the liquid, minimize friction loss, provide straight and uniform flow at the pump inlet and avoid excessive forces due to pipe strains at the pump.
Latest Piping Articles
With production time and cash flow at an all time premium, more companies are looking for time and cost saving alternatives to replacing slightly damaged assets.
Many pipeline systems throughout the U.S. are in need of maintenance, but this maintenance is often pushed back because there is no way to properly shut down the system. Not any more. Time to gain control of your system.
Corrosive, aggressive soil had eaten through a 35 year old ductile iron pipeline in the Port of Tampa area, causing a multitude of leaks that could not be repaired. Replacing the rotten pipe with more iron would have been costly and shortsighted. The radical environment required polyvinyl chloride (PVC) piping.
Good suction piping design must eliminate air entrainment in the liquid, minimize friction loss, provide straight and uniform flow at the pump inlet and avoid excessive forces due to pipe strains at the pump.
Soils with high concentrations of clay and silt can wreak havoc on construction sites, drain pipes, sewers and pumps. Users working with soils might want to consider geotextiles as a preventive maintenance alternative.
With continuously increasing energy costs, pump manufacturers must provide energy efficient solutions for fluid transfer. Besides hydraulically optimizing current technology, manufacturers are launching a number of new, highly efficient electrical drives and powerful control systems.
How many gallons per minute are REALLY flowing out of that pump?
Today's pipe stress analysis software provides engineers with a tool for designing complete piping systems and performing structural analysis in compliance with ASME and other well-known piping codes. The typical PC-based software is easy to use with spreadsheet inputs and quick reporting. It has facilitated the design to analyze iteration cycle and enabled the engineers to quickly create better and more reliable piping systems.
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."
