How Does Pump Suction Limit The Flow

How Does Pump Suction Limit the Flow?
One of the claimed advantages of the centrifugal pumps over positive

displacement pumps is their ability to operate over a wide range of
flow. Since a centrifugal pump operates at the intersection of a pump
curve and a system curve, by varying the system curve the operating
point of the pump is easily changed:
Figure 1-1 Flow control of the centrifugal pump by the discharge valve
The convenience and simplicity of such flow control by the discharge

valve throttling comes at a price, because a pump is thus forced to run
either to the left, or to the right, of it's best efficiency point
(BEP). However, the real danger of operating the pump too far off-peak
comes from the suction side considerations. Too far to the right - and
you are easily risking to run out of the available NPSHA, causing
cavitation problems. Too far to the left - flow recirculation at the
impeller eye will let itself known through the noise, vibration, and
damage. Thus, the flow must be limited on both sides of the BEP:
Figure 1-2 Pump operating range has limits
Consider the first limitation - high flow. Centrifugal pump stops

pumping when liquid turns to vapor. This happens when the pressure
somewhere inside the pump drops below liquid vapor pressure. Vapor
pressure depends on the temperature, and a few other things. As we know,
water turns to vapor at 212 oF at atmospheric pressure, when we boil
water in the open pot. If the pot were closed, the water would reach
higher pressure before it boils. Conversely, if the pressure were
reduced (vacuum), water would boil at lower temperature. It will boil at
room temperature, if the absolute pressure is less then about 0.4 psia.
Water has low vapor pressure, but other substances may have very high
value.
Freon, for example, has vapor pressure of about 90 psia, and ethane
value of vapor pressure is about 700 psi, - at 80 0F. Knowing vapor
temperature without relating it to a corresponding temperature is
meaningless. Sometimes it is good to have a tabulation, or a graph,
showing the relationship between the vapor pressure and temperature. The
higher the temperature - the higher the vapor pressure is.
Centrifugal pump is a "pressure generator", produced by the centrifugal

force of its rotation impeller. The pressure gets higher as flow
progresses from the suction to discharge. This is why vaporization of
liquid is most likely to happen in the inlet (suction) region, where the
pressure is lowest. In practice, it is difficult to know exactly when
vaporization (cavitation) happens, so it is wise to keep some margin of
available pressure over vapor pressure. Pressure is expressed in "psi",
but can also be expressed in feet of water, and the conversion formula
is:
FT = PSI x 2.31 / SG, where SG is specific gravity.
This pressure, expressed in feet of water, is called discharge head at

the pump exit side, or suction head on the inlet side. The difference is
a pump developed head, also called a total dynamic head (TDH). These
heads must include both static and dynamic components. Static part is
what we measure by the gage in front of a pump, and dynamic, according
to Bernoulli, is velocity head V2/2g.
For example, suppose an inlet pressure gage installed in a 2" pipe

directly in front of a pump delivering 100 gpm oil with specific gravity
SG = 0.9, reads 10 psig. To calculate velocity head, find the pipe net
area, which is A = 3.14 x d2 / 4 = 3.14 x 22 / 4 = 3.1 in2.
The velocity can be calculated by the formula:
V = (Q x 0.321) / A = (100 x 0.321) / 3.1 = 10.4 ft / sec
Then, the velocity head is:
V2 / 2g = 10.42 / (2 x 32.2) = 1.7 ft, or, converted to psi is
= 1.7 x 0.9 / 2.31 = 0.7 psi
The total suction pressure is then 10 + 0.7 = 10.7 psi, or, if expressed
in feet of water,
= 10.7 x 2.31 / 0.9 = 27.5 feet
It is best to have gages as close as possible to the pump, on the

suction and discharge sides. Unfortunately, often these gages are not
installed, (which somehow happens more often on the suction side), and
suction head in front of the pump is estimated by calculations, by
subtracting the pressure (head) losses from the known value of head
upstream, and adjusting by elevation correction, according to Bernoulli.
In many cases, the upstream datum is a known liquid level in a suction
tank.
Examples:
a) Tank open to atmosphere:
Figure 1-3a: Open tank
Figure 1-3b: Pressurized tank
Figure 1-3c: Tank under vacuum
For water and similarly low viscosity liquids, suction losses are
usually low, and often are disregarded. However, for more viscous
substances, such as oils, these losses can be substantial, and may cause
the pressure in front of the pump drop below the vapor pressure, causing
cavitation. This is why the inlet velocity must be minimized, as the
losses depend on velocity squared.
Longer pipe runs, bends, turns and other restrictions, add to inlet
losses, leading to further pressure reduction in front of a pump. As a
quiz, using the examples above, see if you can figure out what happens
to inlet pressure if the pipe diameter is doubled? Or made half the
diameter? (If you do send the answer to us, and will publish it the
Pump Magazine).
To avoid cavitation, what matters is not the suction pressure, but much
higher it is then the vapor pressure of the liquid being pumped. This is
where a concept of NPSH comes handy. The available NPSHA thus is simply
the difference between this total suction head, as discussed above, and
vapor pressure, expressed as head, in feet.
Pump manufacturers conduct tests by gradually lowering suction pressure,

and observing when things begin to get out of hands. For a while, as
pressure decreases (i.e. NPSHA gets smaller), nothing happens, at least
nothing obvious. A pump, operating at a set flow, keeps on pumping, and
develops constant head. At some point, when the value of suction
pressure (and corresponding NPSHA), reaches a certain value, a pump head
begins to drop, which typically happens rather suddenly:
Figure 1-4: Development of Cavitation
Actually, things are happening inside the pump well before the sudden
drop of head, but they are not as obvious. First, at still substantial
suction pressure, small bubbles begin to form. This is called incipient
cavitation - sort of tiny bubbles in your water cattle that begins to
percolate before water is fully boiling. These small bubbles are formed
and collapse, at very high frequency, and can only be detected by the
special instrumentation. As pressure is decreased further, more bubbles
are formed, and eventually there are so many of them, that the pump
inlet becomes "vapor-locked", so that no fluid goes through, and the
pump stops pumping - the head drops and disappears quickly. It would be
nice if enough pressure was always available at the suction so that no
bubbles were formed whatsoever. However, this is not practical, and some
compromise must be reached. The Hydraulic Institute (HI) has established
a special significance to a particular value of NPSHA, at which the pump
total developed head drops by 3%. The value of this NPSHA, at which a
pump losses 3% TDH, over (i.e. in access of) vapor pressure is called
net positive suction head required (NPSHr) in order to maintain 3% TDH
loss.
NPSHr = (Hsuction - Hvapor), required to maintain 3% TDH loss
NPSHr is, therefore, established by actual test, and may vary from one
pump design to another.
In contrast, the available NPSHa, has nothing to do with a pump, but is

strictly a calculated value of total suction head over vapor pressure.
Clearly, NPSHA must be greater then NPSHR, in order for a pump to make
its performance, i.e. to deliver a TDH, at a given flow.
It is easy to know when a NPSH problem is obvious - a pump just stops
pumping, but the vapor bubbles do not need to be so dramatically
developed to cause TDH drop, - even smaller bubbles can cause problems.
The evolved bubbles get carried on through the impeller passage, at
which pressure is rising from inlet to exit of the blade cascade. This
increased pressure causes the reverse to what happened to a bubble
"awhile back", when it first became a bubble formed from a liquid
particle during phase transformation (boiling). Now, the bubble is at
the somewhat higher pressure, which tries to squeeze it, against the
vapor surface tension that keeps the bubble a bubble. The bubble
collapses (implodes), with a sudden in-rush of surrounding liquid into a
vacuum space previously occupied by the bubble. The inrush is
accompanied by a tremendous, but a very localized, pressure shock,
which, if imploded in the vicinity of the metal (impeller blade), would
cause a microscopic hammer-like impact, eroding a small particle of
metal. With enough bubbles and enough time, the impeller vanes can be
eroded away quickly, a phenomenon known as cavitation (hence the word)
damage.
This is why an NPSHA margin (M=NPSHA-NPSHR) is important, which is

typically at least 3-5 feet, and preferably should be even more, if
possible.
The NPSHR, discussed above, was so far limited to a particular flow on a

pump performance curve. At higher flow, the internal fluid velocities
are higher, and, according to Bernoulli, the static pressure (or static
head) part becomes less, i.e. closer to vapor pressure. The static
pressure, therefore, must be increased externally, i.e. a higher value
of NPSHR is needed for higher flows. This is why the NPSHR curve shape
looks like this:
Figure 1-5: Ample margin of NPSHA is important
It is important to specify an ample margin of NPSHA over the pump NPSHR

for a complete range of operation, and not just at a single rated flow
point. The following example illustrates a common mistake, leading to
the NPSH-problem. The pump was procured with the intend to deliver
between 350-500 gpm, and the manufacturer quotation indicated 16 feet
required NPSHR at 500 gpm. As a process later changed, more flow was
required, and the discharge valve was opened to allow pump to deliver
more flow, 750 gpm. However, as can be seen from Figure 1-5, at about
700 gpm, the NPSHR exceeded the NPSHA available at the installation, and
pump started to experience typical NPSH problems - noise, loss of
performance, and impeller cavitation damage.
An instinctive thought to address the issue of cavitation due to flow-
run out operation is to "overkill" on a pump size, and therefore always
stay to the left of the BEP. In the example above, a larger pump, having
same 16 feet NPSHR, but at 750 - 800 gpm, would never run out of the
NPSHA. That is true, and, in fact, this is exactly what has been a
common practice in the past, where an oversized (and, by the way, more
expensive) pump would be specified "to make sure", - just to discover
other, just as severe problems.
When a centrifugal pump operates below certain flow point, a phenomenon

known as flow recirculation in the impeller eye starts. This depends on
several design factors, such as suction specific speed (see in other
article of Pump Magazine), but generally recirculation begins below 80-
60% flow, and becomes quite sever below 40-20%. At even lower flows,
recirculation may become especially severe, and is known as surge -
violent, low-frequency sound, accompanied by strong low-frequency
vibration of the pump and piping:
Figure 1-6 Problems come up when pump operates at too low flow
In addition to obvious mechanical problems with recirculation, the flow

undergoes a complex vortexing motion at the impeller inlet (eye), with
localized high velocities of the vortex causing horse-shoe looking
cavitation damage, usually on the "blind" side of the blade, as compared
to high-flow cavitation. Other problems add oil to the fire - radial
thrust, which sky-rockets at low flow, causes deflections of the shaft,
leading to seal leaks, bearings life reduction, and even shaft breakage
(see other articles of the Pump Magazine on these subjects).
Troubleshooting methods and failure analysis techniques help to pinpoint

a cavitation problem with a particular pump. The indications of the high
flow cavitation are different from the low flow recirculation damage.
Side of the blades, the extend and shape of the cavitation trough, can
be helpful in determining the causes of each individual problem.

How Does Pump Suction Limit The Flow

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

How Does Pump Suction Limit The Flow

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

How Does Pump Suction Limit The Flow

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

How Does Pump Suction Limit the Flow?

One of the claimed advantages of the centrifugal pumps over positive

The convenience and simplicity of such flow control by the discharge

Figure 1-2 Pump operating range has limits

Consider the first limitation - high flow. Centrifugal pump stops

Centrifugal pump is a "pressure generator", produced by the centrifugal

FT = PSI x 2.31 / SG, where SG is specific gravity.

This pressure, expressed in feet of water, is called discharge head at

For example, suppose an inlet pressure gage installed in a 2" pipe

The velocity can be calculated by the formula:

V = (Q x 0.321) / A = (100 x 0.321) / 3.1 = 10.4 ft / sec

Then, the velocity head is:

V2 / 2g = 10.42 / (2 x 32.2) = 1.7 ft, or, converted to psi is

= 1.7 x 0.9 / 2.31 = 0.7 psi

= 10.7 x 2.31 / 0.9 = 27.5 feet

It is best to have gages as close as possible to the pump, on the

a) Tank open to atmosphere:

Figure 1-3a: Open tank

Figure 1-3b: Pressurized tank

Figure 1-3c: Tank under vacuum

Pump manufacturers conduct tests by gradually lowering suction pressure,

Figure 1-4: Development of Cavitation

NPSHr = (Hsuction - Hvapor), required to maintain 3% TDH loss

In contrast, the available NPSHa, has nothing to do with a pump, but is

This is why an NPSHA margin (M=NPSHA-NPSHR) is important, which is

The NPSHR, discussed above, was so far limited to a particular flow on a

Figure 1-5: Ample margin of NPSHA is important

It is important to specify an ample margin of NPSHA over the pump NPSHR

When a centrifugal pump operates below certain flow point, a phenomenon

In addition to obvious mechanical problems with recirculation, the flow

Troubleshooting methods and failure analysis techniques help to pinpoint

You might also like