Pump Circuit Lab Report

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

NATIONAL DIPLOMA IN CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

PRACTICAL PROGRAMME

REPORT TITLE: Pumping Circuits

Student’s Surname: MUTHAMBI Subject: CHEM PLANT3

Student’s Name: MURUNWA GENE Date Performed: 03 September 2014

Student Number: 212162705 Due Date: 25 September 2014

Section Possible Mark Student's Mark

Title Page 1

Table of Contents 3

List Symbols 2

Structure 2

Executive Summary 5

Introduction 5

Theory 15

Procedure 10

Results 25

Discussion 25

Conclusion 5

References 2

Total 100

Declaration: I certify that this report is my own unaided work, except for the assistance received by the teaching staff. I undertake not to pass this report on to any other student.

Date: _______________ Signed:

In this practical report a type of pump used was the centrifugal pump which was made to carry out the working principles involved with it. Using Centrifugal pump helped us (students) to acquire system curves and the efficiency of the equipment. These assisted us (students) in performing various energy balances across system using Bernoulli’s equation and also to observe the cavitation phenomena. Furthermore Centrifugal pump helped us to understand more on net positive head available and net positive head required. Centrifugal pumps are known to change the Kinetic energy to hydrodynamic energy. Through various calculations we were able to calculate measurements like the suction side length, height of the tank, K-values which were used to read the bends and fittings and the diameter of the pump. The system curves where plotted after obtaining all the required calculations and overall these helped us verify that the results are correct as they follow on the steps of the theoretical

The hydraulic energy is in a form of high pressure. Centrifugal pump converts mechanical energy to hydraulic energy by centrifugal action. Centrifugal pumps work on the principle energy of forced vortex flow which in other words mean that when a certain mass of liquid is rotated in by an external torque a rise in pressure head of rotating liquid will take place. Thus the impeller outlet where a larger radius is found the rise in pressure head will be greater and the liquid will be discharged at the outlet side with a high pressure head and due to this high pressure head, liquid will be lifted to a high level.

Priming in centrifugal pumps is the operation in which the casing of the pump, suction side and the portion of delivery pipe is completely filled up from outside source with liquid to be raised by the pump before starting the pump. Thus from these parts air is removed and is completely filled with liquid. When the pipe is running in air, Head generated is much less compared to head generated when the pump is filled with water. In such case, water may not be sucked from the pump. The pump will just rotate without raising the water to the required