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Hydraulic Rerate Proven in Performance Test Lab

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Custom Hydraulics for the Midstream Market

This summer, Hydro completed a hydraulic rerate project for a major US midstream pipeline. The project was completed through Hydro South, Hydro’s southeastern US service center in Alpharetta, Georgia. The project was completed with testing support from the Hydro Performance Test Lab, Hydro’s 5000 HP test facility located in Chicago, IL, with engineering direction from Hydro Global Engineering, based in Manchester, UK.

The pipeline originally used two booster pumps and the use of a Drag Reducing Agent (DRA) to achieve the desired flow rate. To increase the overall flow capacity of the line and remove the need for the DRA, the end user specified a pump to be added to the system downstream of the booster pumps.

The pump performance specifications were developed by system engineers and communicated to Hydro. The pump’s original design condition was modified to provide the necessary differential pressure required for the desired flow rate – for today and in the future. This will be achieved without the use of DRA or with little added to the system.

Hydro modified an existing pump casing provided by the pipeline and designed new impellers to meet the specific hydraulic performance requirements. Using computational fluid dynamics and advanced modeling, the new impellers were manufactured and installed by Hydro, then sent to Hydro’s test facility for hydraulic performance testing.

To provide an exact performance match, a larger impeller diameter size was selected for the first test and subsequently trimmed to meet performance within API 610 tolerances. Along with the hydraulic performance test, the mechanical integrity of the pump was measured with a vibration test, mechanical resonance test, and a bearing housing temperature stabilization test. All this information validates the quality of the rebuild and ensures a reliable machine.

The pipeline has a limited ‘budget’ of DRA concentration allowed pipeline wide. This concentration is measured in part per million (ppm). By adding the hydraulically rerated pump to the branch line, the DRA ppm budget can be allocated elsewhere in the pipeline. This will add efficiency and increase overall throughput.

Hydro is very fortunate to support critical industries like midstream pipelines in ensuring safe, reliable, and cost-effective pumps and rotating equipment.

Learn more about Hydro’s Performance Test Lab and Engineering Services

Challenging MTBF Expectations

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Improving Maintenance Intervals in Demanding Applications

Some services are inherently difficult due to factors such as fluid quality or multiple disparate operating points.  These factors are an inherent part of the process and cannot be changed to improve reliability. Harsh applications can be a costly prospect, both in overhaul costs and in the time and labor required for frequent servicing. Many times we become caught in the perception that there is no improvement to be had for these services. A short mean-time-between-failures (MTBF) becomes routine and expected, and maintenance activities and parts procurement are built around this expectation.  

It’s important that processes are built around historical run times to anticipate needs in the short term. However, it is equally important to take a step back and ask– “is this maintenance interval really acceptable or is there something that I can do to improve it?” An end user in the Canadian oil sands industry decided to take on that challenge when faced with a problematic bitumen froth transfer pump. This end user partnered with Hydro’s Scotford facility in Alberta to develop a series of upgrades that improved operating life while simultaneously reducing the cost of repair. 

Read the full case study in World Pumps July/August 2023 edition.

Learn more about our Hydro Scotford service center.

Contaminant-Free Environment for Critical Services

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Pump Solutions for Clean Applications

Many critical pump applications require sanitization and assembly in a clean environment to prevent contaminants that could put the service at risk of combustion or affect the purity of the end product. To better meet our customers’ clean service needs, Hydro has installed a state-of-the-art clean room at our HydroTex Deer Park facility.

Hydro’s Deer Park clean room allows decontamination of refurbished pumps in a controlled environment. Cleaned components are inspected to ensure the absence of contaminants using a black light and are individually packaged after inspection. Upon decontamination of all components, the full pump is assembled in the clean room environment using stringent control procedures to ensure cleanliness of the equipment is maintained. The assembled pump is packaged in a sealed environment in preparation of delivery to the end user.

Since its inception in 2021, Deer Park’s clean room has become the facility of choice for various oxygen, nitrogen, and chlorine pump end users in the Houston and greater Gulf Coast regions. We are proud to add this new service to our pump subject matter expertise and industry-leading refurbishment standards.  With this winning combination, Hydro continues support our customers in ensuring safe and reliable pump operation while reducing their total cost of equipment ownership.

Capability in Action

An industrial gas customer providing medical-grade oxygen had been sending their O2 pumps for refurbishment to the overseas OEM, who does not have a US facility. HydroTex Deer Park repaired and decontaminated their O2 pumps in their dedicated clean room.

Being able to find a reliable, qualified supplier that was local to their facility saved the end user valuable time and ensured availability of this critical, lifesaving application.

Visit our HydroTex facility in La Porte.

How do you measure axial thrust?

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Innovations in Thrust Measurement

Thrust is an important factor in vertical turbine pumps because it directly affects the performance and reliability of the pump. Excessive axial thrust can cause the motor thrust bearing to wear faster, run at a higher temperature, and/or fail if overloaded. This results in a higher total cost of ownership by reducing equipment operating life, forcing unexpected downtime, and requiring costly emergency work.

Historically, thrust has been a calculated value based on the impeller design and other pump parameters; this calculation is an approximation and has a margin of error. Axial thrust can be more accurately assessed through testing, but direct measurement of the thrust across the profile of a pump performance curve is not typically performed by OEMs.

In support of a customers’ request to better understand the repeated failure of a vertical turbine pump, Hydro’s Test Lab and S. Himmelstein and company developed a thrustmeter that provides users with an accurate and reliable measurement of thrust across the tested performance curve. This measurement was not only more accurate than the calculated thrust values, it provided insight beyond a single operating point.

By monitoring critical pump and motor data, the end user was empowered to make the best possible decision for their equipment and plant.

Read more about this innovation in our joint white paper, published with Pumps & Systems magazine.

Learn more about how Hydro’s Certified Performance Test Lab and how Hydro can support you in better understanding and optimizing the performance of your equipment.

System Optimization

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Boost Energy Efficiency and Accelerate Savings

It’s estimated that 85% of pumps are not optimized to their systems, costing end users both efficiency and reliability. To achieve operational excellence and reduce environmental impact, assessing and improving our systems is essential.

There is a lot of focus on buying new equipment with a higher energy efficiency rating. In reality, the efficiency gains available in optimizing efficiency within the pump design is usually dwarfed by the energy savings available by optimizing the way the pump operates within its system. Not only does optimizing a pump to its system result in a reduction in energy usage, it allows the pump to operate at its best efficiency point (BEP), where reliability is the greatest.

With today’s technology, optimizing a pumping system is achievable with less cost and a greater return on investment. Advancements in testing capabilities and analytical modeling help us to better understand and predict how fluid moves through a system, allowing us to identify more opportunities for improvement. These technologies also eliminate the uncertainty of planned modifications by assessing their effectiveness in a virtual environment.

When optimizing a pump to its system, it’s important to have a holistic mindset- looking beyond the pump boundaries, considering both mechanical and hydraulic performance, and understanding that system operation is affected as much by the people who operate it as it is the physical system itself. What tools are useful to have in your toolbox when approaching a system optimization project?

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