Water pumping station
The customer
- Size: Large contractor
- Sector: Clean water industry
- Country: United Kingdom
The Project
- Size: 80-100 man-hours
- Duration: 2-3 weeks
The Problem
- Flow rotation in the pump pipes can cause wear
- High maintenance costs due to solid deposition
Proposed solution
- Model fluid flow for different pump inlet geometries and measure swirling
- Assess compliance with ANSI Pump intake design standard [ANSI/HI 9.8-1998]
- Estimate solid deposition for the given flow conditions
The simulations
- Incompresible single phase steady state hydrodynamic simulation (CFD analysis)
- Critical Shields Stress and the Boundary Reynolds Number are determined for solid deposition (CFD analysis)
Project overall results
- Optimised pump inlet design has proven to be significantly more efficient (7% to 4% swirl angle).
- Savings over £28,000 for the customer in prototyping and testing (estimate).
- Savings of more than 10 weeks in development time (estimate).
For more details about water pumping simulation, please read our CFD analysis of water pumping facilities white paper.
