ME 2135E Lab Report

Characteristics of a Centrifugal Pump

by

LIN SHAODUN A0066078X

Lab Group 2B
Date 24th Mar 2011
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

O BJECTIVES 2

E XPERIMENT P ROCEDURE 2

W ORKSHEET 4

S AMPLE C ALCULATION 5

P LOT OF G RAPHS 6

D ISCUSSION 8

C ONCLUSION 10

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 O BJECTIVES

A pump is a device used to move fluids, such as liquids, gases or slurries. A centrifugal
pump is a rotodynamic pump that uses a rotating impeller to increase the pressure of a
fluid. In order to select a pump for a particular application and use it effectively, it’s
necessary to know the pump characteristics.
The purposes of this experiment are:
a) To determine the pump characteristics Head , Pressure and efficiency versus
Flow Rate at given speed (2100 rpm and 1800 rpm).
b) To verify the speed laws: and for the same pump.

E XPERIMENT P ROCEDURE

The experiment is conducted with a centrifugal pump test rig as follow:

The test rig consists a centrifugal pump drives by variable speed DC motor and the
closed-loop piping system.
 The flow rate is controlled by a valve installed after the pressure pipe section and is
measured by a digital flow meter.

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  The head across the pump is measured by the pressure gauges at suction and
discharge pipe section.
 The power of electric motor is measured by balancing the torque arm attached to the
stator which develops an equal and opposite torque to the rotor.

P ROCEDURE OF E XPERIMENT

1) Make sure the valve is fully closed, turn on the control panel power, and then press
the [Start] button on motor controller.
2) Adjust the frequency knob on motor controller to set the motor speed at approx. 2100
rpm.
3) Adjust the hand wheel links to fixed end of tension gauge until the marking on
moving part of tension gauge is aligned with indicator, record down the force
measured by tension gauge.
4) Take readings from Suction Pressure gauge and Discharge Pressure gauge. Usually
the dial of Suction Pressure gauge is oscillating, so the reading only can be estimated
base on average value.
5) Record down the flow rate displayed on digital flow meter.
6) Open the valve until the Discharge Pressure gauge reading is approx. 0.3 kgf/cm2,
fine tune the motor speed to initial rpm setting if necessary. Record down the
readings described in step 3) to 5).
7) Repeat above test for Discharge Pressure gauge reading at 0.6, 0.9 and 1.2 kgf/cm2.
8) Repeat the whole test with another motor speed setting (1800 rpm). In this test, the
Discharge Pressure setting will be 0 (Fully open), 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0 (Fully
close) kgf/cm2.
9) When test is finished, fully close the valve, adjust the motor speed to zero and then
turn off control panel power.

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 W ORK S HEET

Experiment Date: 24th Mar 2011

ME 2135-1 Centrifugal Pump Experiment - Work Sheet Workgroup: 2B

N1 = 2110 (rpm) = 221.06 (rad/s) (Note: Pump speed N should be maintained constant for different valve settings)

Valve Setting M (kg) Suction Discharge Pressure Volume Flow Input Shaft Output Efficiency,,
Pressure, Pin Pressure, Head Rate, Q, m3/hr Power, Ps, Power, Pw, (%)
(kgf/cm2) Pout (kgf/cm2) (kgf/cm2) (KW) (KW)

Fully Open 2.10 -0.20 0 0.2 6.76 0.546 0.037 6.7%

1.75 -0.18 0.30 0.48 6.18 0.455 0.081 17.7%

1.70 -0.15 0.60 0.75 5.34 0.442 0.109 24.7%

1.70 -0.12 0.90 1.02 4.30 0.442 0.119 27.0%

1.50 -0.08 1.20 1.28 3.04 0.390 0.106 27.2%

Fully Close 0.80 0 1.42 1.42 0 0.208 0.000 0.0%

N2 = 1808 (rpm) = 189.33(rad/s) (Note: Pump speed N should be maintained constant for different valve settings)

Valve Setting M (kg) Suction Discharge Pressure Volume Flow Input Shaft Output Efficiency,,
Pressure, Pin Pressure, Head Rate, Q, m3/hr Power, Ps, Power, Pw, (%)
(kgf/cm2) Pout (kgf/cm2) (kgf/cm2) (KW) (KW)

Fully Open 1.50 -0.16 0 0.16 5.76 0.334 0.025 7.5%

1.25 -0.14 0.20 0.34 5.36 0.279 0.050 17.8%

1.20 -0.10 0.40 0.50 4.54 0.267 0.062 23.1%

1.05 -0.075 0.60 0.675 3.85 0.234 0.071 30.2%

0.95 -0.05 0.80 0.85 2.84 0.212 0.066 31.1%

Fully Close 0.50 0 1.00 1 0 0.111 0.000 0.0%

Input Power : Ps = MgRN (N in rad/s) Torque Arm Length, R = 0.12m

Output Power : Pw = wgHQ (H in m) Impeller Diameter, D = 0.16m

Unit Conversion: 1 kgf/cm2 = 98066.5 N/m2(Pa)

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 S AMPLE CALCULATION

Note: The sample calculation is based on 2111 rpm and Fully Open condition

1. Pressure head:

( ) ( ( ))
⁄ ⁄

2. Input Power

3. Output Power

4. Pump efficiency

5. Head Coefficient of pump

6. Flow Coefficient of pump

7. Predicting H @ 2111 rpm

( ) ( )

8. Predicting Q @ 2111 rpm

( ) ( )

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 P LOT OF G R APHS

a) Graph 1 – Plot H (m), Ps (kW) and  versus Q (m3/s) for both speed of the pump.

16 Head vs. Flow Rate

14
2111 rpm
12 1808 rpm

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Head H (m)

2
Flow Rate Q (m3/s)
0
0.0000 0.0003 0.0005 0.0008 0.0010 0.0013 0.0015 0.0018 0.0020

0.7 Input Power vs. Flow Rate

0.6 2111 rpm

1808 rpm
0.5
Input Power (kW)

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1
Flow Rate Q (m3/s)
0
0.0000 0.0003 0.0005 0.0008 0.0010 0.0013 0.0015 0.0018 0.0020

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 0.40 Effeciency vs. Flow Rate

0.35 2111 rpm

1808 rpm
0.30

0.25
Effeciency 

0.20

0.15

0.10

0.05
Flow Rate Q (m3/s)
0.00
0.0000 0.0003 0.0005 0.0008 0.0010 0.0013 0.0015 0.0018 0.0020

b) Graph 2 – Plot  versus  for both speeds and verify the performance law of a fluid
machinery.

0.0025 CQ  vs CH 

2111 rpm
0.0020 1808 rpm
CH : Head Coefficient

0.0015

0.0010

0.0005

CQ : Flow Coefficient
0.0000
0.000 0.020 0.040 0.060 0.080 0.100 0.120

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 c) Graph 3 – Plot H (m) vs. Q (m3/s) for both speed and verify the speed law by
predicting one curve from the other.

16 Head vs. Flow Rate

14

12

10
Head H (m)

6 2111 rpm Actual

1808 rpm Actual
4 2111 rpm prediction
1808 rpm prediction
2
Flow Rate Q (m3/s)
0
0.0000 0.0003 0.0005 0.0008 0.0010 0.0013 0.0015 0.0018 0.0020

D ISCUSSION

1. Comment about H (m) versus Q (m3/s) graph.

Observations from the graph:

a) The gradient of Head is relatively small at low flow rate, and it became steep after a
transitional point (From the Efficiency versus Flow rate graph, you can see actually
that is the BEP).
b) The Head become zero at maximum flow rate.
c) The shape of both curves is similar, this is because the curves are obtained from the
same pump with different speed, hence they have Dynamic Similarity.
2. Comment about Ps (kW) versus Q (m3/s) graph.

Observations from the graph:

a) The Power input is proportional to the flow rate.
b) At zero flow rate, the power input is not zero, this amount of power is to overcome
the rotor inertia of DC motor and centrifugal pump as well as mechanical frictional
loss.
c) The shape of both curves is similar, this is because the curves are obtained from the
same pump with different speed setting, hence they have Dynamic Similarity.

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 d) When plot the points on the same graph, the predicted result is quite close to
actual measurement result especially for lower speed setting (1808 rpm).

0.7 Input Power vs. Flow Rate

2111 rpm Actual
0.6 1808 rpm Actual
2111 rpm Prediction
0.5
Input Power (kW)

1808 rpm Prediction

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1
Flow Rate Q (m3/s)
0
0.0000 0.0003 0.0005 0.0008 0.0010 0.0013 0.0015 0.0018 0.0020

3. Comment about  versus Q (m3/s) graph.

Observations from the graph:

a) Efficiency  is zero when flow rate is zero.
b) Efficiency  increases when flow rate increase until it reaches BEP, and it decreases
when further increase flow rate.
c) Maximum pump efficiency occurs at approximately Q* = 0.53~0.56 Qmax. This is the
best efficiency point BEP, at any other operating point, efficiency is less.
4. Comment about  versus  graph.

Observations from the graph:

The  versus  curve is coincided onto each other for two speed settings, this is because
the Flow coefficient CQ and Head Coefficient CH is the identity of a pump, which will
remain the same regardless of various rpm setting. According to performance law, the
operation condition of a turbomachine will be dynamically similar at two different
rotational speeds if all fluid velocities at corresponding points within the machine area in
the same direction and proportional to the blade speed. If two points, one on each of the
different head-flow characteristics, represent dynamically similar operation of the
machine, then the non-dimensional groups of the variables involved, ignoring Reynolds
number effects may be expected to have the same numerical value for both points.

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 5. Comment predicted H (m) vs. Q (m3/s) graph.

Observations from the graph:

a) Prediction bases on lower speed (1808 rpm) for higher speed (2111 rpm) shows very
good correlation.
b) However, prediction value bases on higher speed for lower speed does not show very
good correlation, this might due to the following reasons:
i. At higher rpm, the hydraulic efficiency and mechanical efficiency is lower
than at lower rpm, more internal leakage and frictional loss happens,
which will affect both Head and Flow rate.
ii. At higher rpm, there is more experimental error occurs, for example, the
dial of suction pressure gauge oscillates more violently at higher rpm test,
and the flow rate read out also become more fluctuating at higher rpm. All
these factors will affect the final result during the higher rpm test.

C ONCLUSION

The experiment on characteristic of centrifugal pump is a very good learning experience

for me, it not only helps me have better understanding of Performance Law, but also
helps me reviewed many important concepts and formulas described in the lecture note.

After the experiment, I have better understanding about the pump characteristic curves,
and I felt satisfy about the experiment data as it matched with theoretical data quite well.

However, I believe the test rig can be further improved in some area to reduce the
experimental error, for instance:

 The dial of suction pressure gauge is always oscillating during experiment which
greatly reduced the accuracy of read out,
 The DC motor speed control knob is very sensitive to adjust, hence it’s difficult
to maintain the motor speed at a constant value throughout the whole experiment.
 The tension gauge is not installed in a convenience location, which might cause
parallax error when try to align the marking to indicator.
 Lastly, the suction pressure gauge and the discharge pressure gauge are installed
far away from flow control valve, which is inconvenience to monitor the reading
while adjusting the valve opening.

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