Pumps & Systems
June, 2008
With large-scale consolidations of OEMs in the pump industry and the closure of foundries in North America, advanced non-OEM pump rebuild shops have emerged that offer creative solutions, competitive pricing and quick turnaround time to pump users. A qualified independent rebuild shop employing highly experienced personnel and a range of advanced technologies can offer cost effective and creative solutions to long lead times on new pumps, which often range from 6 to 12 months.
The following example demonstrates how a petrochemical pump user utilized the capabilities of a competent pump repair shop to achieve a cost-effective solution for their plant expansion.
Creative Solutions for Chemical Plant Expansion
A petrochemical plant in the Gulf Coast region was expanding production. Because of the time frame involved in completing the project, they elected to source a surplus pump from the used pump market and modify it to suit their needs rather than purchasing a new pump. Delivery of a new pump would have taken 6 to 8 months and they wanted to be online in just 44 days! This plant needed a solution to this challenging engineering problem and intensely demanding production schedule.
The plant chose to work with a pump repair shop that employs CAD/CAM, CMM and Romer Arms in addition to Computational Fluid Dynamics software and material analyzers. With the added resources of skilled engineers and experienced technicians, many with engineering or operations backgrounds from major pump manufacturers, this plant chose a repair shop with exceptional hydraulic design and reverse engineering capabilities to address their emergency situation.
With guidance from the repair shop, the plant purchased an 8-stage pump that could be modified to meet their specific needs. After a thorough engineering review and inspection of the existing pump, the pump repair shop not only proposed a solution to the emergency situation, but also offered upgrades to improve both pump performance and reliability of the pump for this chemical application.
Engineering Review and Proposed Upgrades and Modifications
An assessment of hydraulic performance is high on the list whenever upgrades are contemplated. For this particular pump, the performance curves (see Figure 1) had to be examined first. Then, a dimensional drawing of the barrel (casing) had to be prepared by the repair shop. These two steps enabled the parties to determine desired and feasible modifications and upgrade options.