Centrifugal pump

Classification of pumps
Pump
s
Positive
displaceme
nt pumps

Rotodynami
c
pumps

Low
head
Axial
pump
(propeller)

Medium
head

Centrifugal
pump
Mixed flow
type

High
head
Centrifug
al pump
Radial
type

Reciprocati
ng
pupms

Rotary
pumps

Piston pump
Plunger
pump
Diaphragm
pump

Gear pump
Screw ump
Vane pump

Centrifugal Pumps (Rotodynamic pumps)

A centrifugal pump imparts velocity energy to the

fluid with the help of impeller, which is converted to

pressure energy upon exiting the pump casing.
Centrifugal pump converts mechanical energy from
a motor to energy of a moving fluid. A portion of the
energy goes into kinetic energy of the fluid motion,
and some into potential energy, represented by fluid
pressure (Hydraulic head) or by lifting the fluid,
against gravity, to a higher altitude.
Common uses include water, sewage, petroleum
and petrochemical pumping.

Positive Displacement pumps

Positive Displacement (PD) pumps displace a known

quantity of liquid with each revolution of the pumping

elements. This is done by trapping liquid between the
pumping elements and a stationary casing. Pumping
element designs include gears, lobes, rotary pistons,
vanes, screws and hoses.
Positive Displacement Pump Applications:
Chemical-processing
Liquid Delivery
Marine
Biotechnology
Pharmaceutical
Food
Dairy
Beverage Processing

Centrifugal Vs
Positive displacement Pump
Centrifugal pump

Positive displacement (PD) pump

1. Varying flow depending on

pressure or head.

1. More or less constant flow

regardless of pressure.

2. Flow decreases as the viscosity

goes up.

2. Flow increases due to the

thickening of the product.

3. Changes in pressure have a

dramatic effect
on a Centrifugal pump.

3. Changes in pressure have little

effect on a
PD.

4. NPSHr in a Centrifugal varies with

flow
which is determined by pressure.

4. NPSHr in a PD varies with flow

which is
determined by speed.

5. Centrifugals are more efficient in

high flow conditions.

5. PD pumps are very well suited for

low flow Conditions.

6. Centrifugal is very inefficient at

even
modest viscosity.

6. PD is very efficient with high

viscosity applications.

Main components of
centrifugal pump
Suction pipe with a foot-valve and a strainer,
Delivery Pipe,
Impeller,
Casing:

(a) Volute Casing,

(b) Vortex Casing,
(c) Casing with guide blades.

Impeller
The rotating part of a centrifugal pump is called impeller. It

consists of a series of curved vanes. It is mounted on a shaft

which is connected to the shaft of an electric motor.
In closed impellers the vanes are covered with side plates
(shrouds) on both sides. The back shroud is mounted into shaft
and front shroud is coupled to the former by the vanes.
The arrangement provides a smooth passage for the liquid; wear
is reduced to minimum. This ensures full capacity operation with
high efficiency for a prolonged running period.
Semi-open impeller has a plate only on back side. The design is
adopted to industrial pump problems which required a rugged
pump to handle liquids containing fibrous material such as paper
pulp, sugar molasses and sewage water etc.
In open impeller, no shroud or plate is provided on either side
i.e., the vanes are open on both sides. Such pumps are used
where the pump has a very rough duty to perform i.e. to handle
abrasive liquids etc.

Casing
The casing is an air tight passage surrounding the

impeller and is designed in such a way that the kinetic

energy of the water discharged at the outlet of the
impeller is converted into pressure energy before the
water leaves casing and enters the delivery pipe.
(a)Volute Casing: - It is of spiral type in which area of
flow increases gradually.
The increase in area of flow decreases the velocity of
flow.
The decrease in velocity increases the pressure of the
water flowing through the casing.
In case of volute casing, the efficiency of the pump
increases slightly as a large amount of energy is lost
due to the formation of eddies in this type of casing.

(b)Vortex Casing: If a circular chamber is introduced

between the casing and the impeller ,the casing is
known as Vortex Casing.
By introducing the circular chamber, the loss of energy
due to the formation of eddies is reduced to a
considerable extent.
Thus the efficiency of the pump is more than the
efficiency when only volute casing is provided.
(c) Casing with Guide Blades:
The impeller is surrounded by a series of guide blades
mounted on a ring which is known as diffuser.
Also the area of the guide vanes increases, thus
reducing the velocity of flow through guide vanes and
consequently increasing the pressure of water.
The water from the guide vanes then passes through

Working of centrifugal pump

The liquid enters the suction nozzle and then into eye (centre) of

an impeller.
When the impeller rotates, it spins the liquid sitting in the cavities
between the vanes outward and provides centrifugal acceleration.
As liquid leaves the eye of the impeller a low-pressure area is
created causing more liquid to flow toward the inlet. Because the
impeller blades are curved, the fluid is pushed in a tangential and
radial direction by the centrifugal force.
The energy created by the centrifugal force is kinetic energy.
This kinetic energy of a liquid coming out of an impeller is
harnessed by creating a resistance to the flow. The first resistance
is created by the pump volute (casing) that catches the liquid and
slows it down.
In the discharge nozzle, the liquid further decelerates and its
velocity is converted to pressure according to Bernoullis principle.

The centrifugalpump works on the principle of

forced vortex flow which means that when a

certain mass of liquid is rotated by an external
torque, the rise in pressure head of the rotating
liquid takes place.
The rise in pressure head at any point of the
rotating liquid is proportional to the square of
tangential velocity of the liquid at that point.
Thus at the outlet of the impeller, whose radius is
more, the rise in pressure head will be more and
the liquid will be discharged at the outlet with a
high pressure head. Due to this high pressure
head, the liquid can be lifted to a high level.

Head of pumps
(h s )
1.Suction head
: It is the vertical height of the
centre line of the centrifugal pump above the water
surface in the tank or pump from which water is to be
lifted. This height is also called suction lift.
2. Delivery head
: The vertical distance between the
( d)
centre line of thehpump
and the water surface in the tank
to which water is delivered is known as delivery head.
3. Static head-The sum of suction head and delivery
head is known as static head. This is represented by
and is written as:
Hs

s
s
d
4. Manometric Head-The manometric head is defined
as the head against which a centrifugal pump has to
work.

H h h

Manometric head is the head measured across the

pump inlet and outlet flanges.

It expresses the increase in pressure energy per unit
weight of liquid handled by the impeller.
The manometric head includes all losses against
which pump has to work except the kinetic head.

mano

p _p
d

h g static head +all losses

Thus manometric head is the difference between the

readings shown by the manometers or gauges plus

the vertical distance
between the pressure
hg
tappings for the suction and delivery gauges.

Total, Gross or Effective Head: this is actual

head against which the pump has to work.

It is equal to static head plus all the head losses
in flow before, through and after the impeller.

p _p
d

hg

Thus

vd _ vs
2g

the difference of total head and

manometric head is the difference of kinetic
head between the delivery and suction.
This difference is very less therefore for
practical purpose the
head
is
( H manometric
)
equal to the total head (H).
mano

Velocity triangle for impeller vane

u2

Vw 2

V2

Vr1

u1

Vf 1

V1

Vw1

Vf 2

Vr 2

=Impeller vane angle at entrance

=Impeller vane angle at outlet

=Angle between the direction of absolute

velocity
of entering fluid and the peripheral
velocity of the impeller at the entrance

=Angle between the direction of absolute

velocity
of leaving fluid and the peripheral
velocity of the impeller at the exit point

Work done by impeller

Work done per kg per second
V22 V12 u22 u12 Vr21 Vr22
H

H mano H mano mano

2g
2g
2g
mano
This is known as fundamental equation of centrifugal
V22 V12
pump.
(i) The first term 2g represent the increase in kinetic
2
2
u

u
energy or dynamic head.
2
1
2g
(ii) The second term
represents an increase in static
2
2
V V
pressure.
2g
(iii) The third term
indicates the change in kinetic
energy due to retardation of flow relative to the
impeller.
r1

r2

The work done per kg per second by the

impeller on the liquid may also be written as

Vw 2 .u2 Vw1.u1
work done =
Euler head(H e )
g
if liquid enters the impeller radially,

= 0 and hence Vw1 0.

thus
Vw 2 .u2 H mano
work done=

g
mano

EFFICIENCIES OF A
CENTRIFUGAL PUMP
1. Manometric

efficiency-The ratio of the

actual measured head or gross lift to the head
imparted by the impeller to the fluid is known
as manometric efficiency. Mathematically, it is
written as
v2

mano

H static H f
u2 .Vw 2
g

2g

H mano
H mano

u2 .Vw 2 H mano H mano

g

. This is also known as Hydraulic efficiency.

2. Mechanical efficiencyMechanical losses in

a pump represent the degradation of energy
due to mechanical friction in packings, glands
and bearings etc. it is defined as the ratio of
the energy transferred to water by the rotor to
the mechanical energy delivered at the shaft
coupling.
rotor or impeller power shaft power - Pmech loss
mech

shaft power
shaft power

3. Volumetric efficiencyLet Q denote the

actual discharge at the pump outlet and. q
represent the internal leakage, then the total or
theoretical volume flowing through the impeller
is (Q + q).
Volumetric efficiency is defined as the ratio of
actual to theoretical discharge.

Q
v
Qq

4. Overall efficiency: is the ratio of the power

supplied by the pump to the power delivered to
the pump shaft.
fluid or water power output
overall
power input to pump shaft
QgH mano

break power of driving unit-power lost in coupling

mech v mano

Minimum starting speed

When pump is started, there will not be any

flow of water until the pressure rise in the

impeller is large enough to overcome the gross
or manometric head.
Centrifugal or pressure head caused by
centrifugalu22 force
on rotating water when
u12

impeller is rotating,
but there is no flow
2g
Flow will commence only if

u22 u12
H mano
2g

or

N d 22 d12
u2 .Vw 2
mano

60 2 g
g

Pump characteristics

Multistage centrifugal pump

Centrifugal pump consists of two or more

impellers, the pump is called a multistage

centrifugal pump.
There are two types of arrangements.
1. Multistage centrifugal pump for high heads or
impellers in series.
2.Multistage centrifugal pump for high discharge
or impellers in parallel.

Impellers in series- For developing a high head a

number of impellers are mounted in series or on the

same shaft as shown in figure below.
The water from suction pipe enters the 1st impellers at
inlet and discharged at outlet with increased pressure.
The water then from 1st impeller taken to inlet of the
2nd impeller with the help of connecting pipe. So at
outlet of 2nd impeller pressure of water will be more.
Total head developed= nH
mano
Where n = no. of impellers in series.

Impellers

in
parallelFor
obtaining
high
discharge the pumps can be connected in parallel.
Each of the pumps lifts the water from a common
pump and discharges water to a common pipe to
which the delivery pipes of each pump is connected.
Each of the pump is working against the same head.
Total discharge = n Q

Cavitation
Flow area at the eye of the impeller is usually smaller than either

the flow area of pump suction line or flow area of impeller vanes.
So when water enters a pump, its velocity increases causing a
reduction in pressure within the pumping unit.
If this pressure falls too low, some of the water will vaporise,
forming bubbles entrained in the liquid.
These bubbles collapse violently as they move to areas of higher
pressure creating the noise and vibration from the pump.
The pressure head available at the pump inlet should exceed the
NPSH required to avoid cavitation.
Thomas cavitation factor is defined as

pa pv

g hs h fs NPSH

H mano
H mano

Net positive suction head

Net positive suction head is the term that is used to describe the

absolute pressure of a fluid at the inlet to a pump minus the vapour

pressure of the liquid.
The resultant value is known as the Net Positive Suction Head
available. The term is normally shortened to the acronym NPSHa,
the a denotes available.
The elements used to calculate NPSHa are all expressed in absolute
head units.
The NPSHa is calculated from:
Fluid surface pressure + positive head pipework friction loss fluid
vapour pressure
or
Fluid surface pressure - negative head pipework friction loss fluid
vapour pressure

pa
pv
NPSH
hs h fs
g
g

SPECIFIC SPEED
Specific speed is a term used to describe the

geometry (shape) of a pump impeller.

Speed of an imaginary pump geometrically
similar in every respect to the actual pump and
capable of delivering unit quantity against a unit
head. It is denoted by Pump
NS:Speed
Specific speed
(in r.p.m)
NS= N (Q)1/2/(H)3/4
Radial flow Slow
10-30
Where:
Medium 30-35
High
50-80
N-pump speed in r.p.m
Q-discharge in m3/sec Mixed flow
80-160
H-head per stage in meter
Axial flow

100-450

Similarity condition
For complete similarity between the model and

prototype/actual centrifugal pump the following

conditions should be satisfied

1.

2.

3.
4.

N Q

H mano

3/4

H mano

DN
m

N Q
3/4
H mano

H mano

DN

Q
Q

3
3
D
N
D

m
N p
P
P

5 3
5
3
D
N
D
N