Maintenance Of Centrifugal Pumps

By Author: Sweta Shah
Total Articles: 8
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It is difficult to imagine operations across various industries without centrifugal pumps. However, it is of utmost importance to carry out maintenance from time to time to ensure they are up and running in good conditions at all times. Operational problems in a centrifugal pump may give rise to many problems which can either be hydraulic or mechanical. When a pump starts posing hydraulic issues, it fails to deliver liquid the way it should. Insufficient capacity and pressure are other problems it starts to present.

Here’re a few tips to keep your centrifugal pump in a good condition.

1.Daily Inspections

Centrifugal pumps must be inspected on a daily basis. It helps you keep track of any irregularities. If you observe any sort of irregularities such as a change in sound, temperature or leakages, they must be fixed right there and then. Current capacity, power consumption, vibration level, and pressure must be gauged every day.

2.Prepare Trending Charts

By preparing charts with trends, you can record an observation ...
... of various changes that take place. These charts can be referred to for scheduled outages to fix-up the concerns and to achieve desired performance values.

3.Precautions Against Damages

Regular and accurate monitoring must be done by a trained maintenance professional and the plan suggested by him/her must be followed diligently. Here’s a list of few parameters that matter the most-

• Pump speed
• Flow
• Suction Pressure
• Power
• The efficiency of the pump
• Discharge pressure

4.Regular Monitoring Matters a Lot

By monitoring your pump on a regular basis, you ensure that no major dismantling becomes necessary as you fix problems as soon as they occur. It also leads to cost and time-efficiency. It goes without saying that productivity and reliability coefficients increase as well. You can have a predictive and planned maintenance strategy in place only if regular monitoring tops your priority.

Vibration monitoring and scheduled oil analysis are other core areas of centrifugal pump maintenance.

5.Quarterly and Annual Inspections

Regular monitoring cannot be emphasized enough, but inspections carried out on a quarterly and annual basis holds their own importance.

- Quarterly Inspections

• You must change the oil every 3 months for satisfactory performance.
• Check the shafts for any misalignment and if there is found any, it should be fixed.
• Foundation and the bolts must be checked.
• The mechanical seal must be checked and replaced, if necessary. If a replacement is required use one manufactured by the best pump seal manufacturer in India.

- Annual Inspections

• Check the capacity of the pump every year.
• Pump pressure must be inspected.
• Pump power must be checked thoroughly.