Hydraulic Design, Numerical and Experimental Analysis of an API Overhung Pump Used in the Oil Industry

Abstract

An API overhung process pump is proposed and analyzed. The pump with a flow rate of 125 m3/h and a Head of 113 m is designed and manufactured by Pumpiran Co. according to API 610 standard. This pump is used in the Tehran oil refinery to pump heavy oil with a working temperature of 390 oC. In the present work, a novel method is developed to design the pump’s hydraulic components, including the impeller and double volute casing. For simulating the three-dimensional turbulent fluid flow, numerical analysis based on CFD is performed by ANSYS-Fluent software. The obtained numerical results are in acceptable agreement with the corresponding experimental results, and the relative error around the rated point is less than 2%. The maximum efficiency of 66.5% is achieved at a flow rate of 135 m3/h. The rated point is at 92.5% of the best efficiency point, and this value is within the allowable region of the API 610 standard. Furthermore, the effect of the volute throat area size on hydraulic performance is perused. The results show that with increasing the size of the volute throat area, the BEP shifts to higher flow rates.