A New Method to Calculate Centrifugal Pump Performance Parameters for Industrial Oils

Pumping of oil instead of water using centrifugal pumps causes rapid increase in the hydraulic losses which results significant reduction in head and efficiency. Therefore, deriving analytical methods to calculate variation of pump performance parameters versus working fluid viscosity is very important. In the present study, a novel method is proposed to calculate the head (H), efficiency ([eta]) and input power (P sub(in)) based on the loss analysis for pumps using industrial oils. A computer code is developed based on represented method and the results of this method are compared with experimental results for a centrifugal pump of type KWP K-Bloc65-200. The results show good agreement between analytical and experimental methods. Finally, using such computer code, diagrams of head, efficiency and input power versus working fluid viscosity are plotted. The results show an interesting point known as "sudden rising head" which is observed experimentally and numerically in literatures.