Special Issue Article

Advances in Mechanical Engineering

2017, Vol. 9(3) 1–13
Ó The Author(s) 2017
Study on performance characteristic of DOI: 10.1177/1687814017691892
journals.sagepub.com/home/ade
medium consistency pump

Daoxing Ye1 and Hong Li2

Abstract
The aim of this work is to study the operation and performance characteristics of medium consistency pump in different
conditions, and a sonar flowmeter and monitoring system are used in the experimental set up. The head, efficiency, gas
fraction, and max flow rate were studied under different pulp concentrations 7.52%, 9.3%, and 12.1%; at speeds 960,
1140, and 1500 r/min; and degas vacuum degree. The dimensionless analysis is applied to pulp pumping. The experimen-
tal results show that pump head and efficiency decrease with the increase in the pulp concentration at constant flow
rate. Vacuum degree has significant effect on pump performance. Medium consistency pump can pump pulp concentra-
tion at 7.52% without vacuum, but pump head and efficiency decrease obviously with the increase in the flow rate. With
increase in vacuum degree, pump head increases and gas fraction decreases at pump outlet. Head increases with the
increase in rotation speed. The higher rotation speed leads to the lower vacuum degree, which indicates that enhancing
speed improves gas–liquid separation. With the increase in concentration of the gas fraction, the degas vacuum degree
increases. The max flow rate decreases with the increase in concentration and increases with the increase in rotation
speed.

Keywords
Medium consistency pump, performance, consistency, sonar flowmeter, vacuum pressure, gas fraction

Date received: 1 August 2016; accepted: 9 January 2017

Academic Editor: Ramoshweu Lebelo

Introduction of a centrifugal pump is studied by Murakami and

Minemura,4 and it was found that the increase in gas
The papermaking industry used more low consistency will lead to decrease in the head. Gullichsen and
centrifugal pump to transport low concentration pulp Harkonen5 and Kamyr in 1981 studied that one and
suspension (\7%) at present. Medium consistency split two structures of consistency pulp pump were
(MC) technology was first developed in the Northern experimentally tested to study the transport properties
Europe in 1970s, and MC pump was one of the impor- of the pulp density of 12% and water pump; the results
tant equipments to pump the pulp slurries at 7%–20%
mass concentration (Cm), which is useful to greatly
1
reduce the number of pulp pump, simplify the entire Key Laboratory of Fluid and Power Machinery, Ministry of Education,
School of Energy and Power Engineering, Xihua University, Chengdu,
pulping process, and reduce water consumption and
China
wastewater discharge.1 MC pump is becoming popular 2
China National Research Center of Pumps, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang,
with papermaking process. China
MC pulp suspension is a gas–liquid–solid three-
phase non-Newtonian fluid and the physical character- Corresponding author:
Daoxing Ye, Key Laboratory of Fluid and Power Machinery, Ministry of
istics are very complex2,3. It is hard to use the numerical Education, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Xihua University,
calculation method for predicting MC pump perfor- Chengdu 610039, China.
mance. The effect of import bubble on the performance Email: [email protected]

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2 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

showed that the accumulation of gas in the pump flow However, there is lack of relevant consistency pulp
caused by a large performance is the reason for the pump design theory. In order to obtain a reference the-
decline. Pressure difference of pump suction hole and oretical guidance, the performance test of MC pump
pulp pump is the main reason impacting gas–liquid still needs further study. Therefore, this article will use
separation, and the relationship between gas volume at the sonar flow measurement system to set up MC pump
pump inlet and gas–liquid separation is not obvious. test platform. The rate of gas was obtained under differ-
The flow models at different flow conditions were ent conditions of the pulp, and then the pump perfor-
investigated, and the MC pump performance at differ- mance curve was studied. The effects of concentration,
ent consistencies and vacuum was studied by S Cao degree of vacuum, and speed on pump characteristic
and R Oba6 in 1996. In 1998, Cao and Oba7 experimen- were revealed; this study provided guidance and refer-
tally tested the performance of MC pulp pump with a ence for MC pump design theory and operation.
vacuum pump, and the result showed that the charac-
teristic of MC pump performance is determined by
Experimental setup and test scheme
vacuum degree, and vacuum pressure increases with the
increase in pulp consistency. B Erickson,8 in 2000, dis- Structure of MC pump
cussed the importance of MC pump designed by ITT in
The MC pump structure is shown in Figure 1. As com-
pulp transport system. Using MC pump had obvious pared with general centrifugal pump, a special device,
effect on energy saving and reduction of water. In 2003, turbulence generator with fluid consistency pulp, was
V Rejio9 introduced the Sulzer production of pulp installed in front of impeller. There was amount of gas
pump medium consistency equipment (MCE), which in MC pulp. The gas was needed to be degased, or MC
has high performance with pulp consistency at 14%– pump disabled transportation because of gas gathering
16% and at temperature 95°C, but the details of experi- in impeller and then clogging of the flow channel. The
mental test data were unpublished. Pulp and Paper gas in pulp was first separated while pulp flows through
Laboratory of South China University of Technology turbulence generator and gathered in impeller inlet,
designed an MC pulp pump MCP in 2003, and experi- and then gas flowed through the vent holes on impeller.
ment was studied.10 In 2007, H Li et al.11 established an With back of impeller blades separating, gas moved
MC pump test system, and the performance with con- into the vacuum chamber, and last gas was degassed at
sistency at 11% was tested. HF Zhuang,12 in 2012, suction hole. The parameters are shown in Table 1.
investigated the effects of different speeds and vacuum
pressure on the consistency pulp performance, and the
result showed that increase in the pump speed and the Experimental setup layout
degree of vacuum can improve MC pump performance. Due to the specialty of pulp, external performance of
In 2014, XD Ma13,14 analyzed the hydraulic structure pulp pump is very different with general centrifugal
of MC pump and built-in pump performance test plat- pump, therefore a particular test system was designed
form to study the change in different pulp concentra- in Figure 2. The experiment set up consists of a MC
tions, the impeller exit width, and degree of vacuum in pump, a frequency conversion motor, a vacuum pump,
the operating characteristics of pump. a ball valve, a vacuum manometer, a pressure sensor, a

Figure 1. (a, b) Structure of medium consistency pulp pump.

Ye and Li 3

Table 1. Design parameters of MC pump.

Flow rate, Qd (m3/h) Head, Hd (m) Power, Pd (kW) Efficiency, hd (%) Speed, n (r/min)

Parameters 450 30 68 65 960

Figure 2. Schematic diagram of testing.

Figure 3. Sonar flowmeter.

sonar flowmeter, a slide valve, and a tank. The MC not have direct contact with pulp flow, hence the data
pump is driven by a four-pole induction motor, and the are prevented from liner inside pipe, fouling impact.
speed of induction motor is controlled by an inverter to The sonar flowmeter is interposed to MC pump dis-
realize different rotational speeds. The vacuum pressure charge piping; using sonar measurement principle, we
is controlled by ball valve. The pulp flow rate is mea- can measure flow rate and gas rate directly, which has
sured by sonar flowmeter. The pressure signal is no pressure limit, no wear, and no signal attenuation
acquired by pressure sensor. The parameters of sensor characteristics.
are shown in Table 2. The standard errors of head, shaft-power, and effi-
The sonar flowmeter, SONARtracÒVF/GVF-100, ciency at different rotational speed are shown in
consists of volume flow rate and gas volume fraction, Table 3. The maximal standard errors of H, P, and h
as shown in Figure 3. As compared with a general are 0.022, 0.041, and 0.023, respectively. However, the
electro-magnetic flowmeter, the sonar flowmeter does MC pulp is complex fluid, and the flow rate can only
4 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Table 2. Sensor parameters.

Apparatus Test data Range Accuracy (%)

Pressure sensor Pressure at pump outlet 2100 to 1000 kPa 6 0.25

Sonar flowmeter Pulp flow rate and gas volume 1–10 m/s 65
0%–20%
Vacuum pump Vacuum pressure 0 to 20.1 MPa 2.5

Table 3. Standard error of head, shaft-power and efficiency.

960 r/min 1140 r/min 1500 r/min

H P h H P h H P h

Standard error (%) 0.01 0.041 0.015 0.022 0.025 0.019 0.017 0.018 0.023

be measured by sonar flowmeter, hence the flow rate rgQH

h= 3 100% ð1Þ
accuracy needs to improve. P
where r is the density of pulp, g is the gravity, Q is the
Test scheme flow rate, H is pump head, and P is the input power.
The head curves decrease slightly with the increase
For studying the effects of consistency, vacuum pres- in flow rate, and the maximum efficiency is about 60%.
sure, and speed on performance of MC pump, kraft With increase in speed, head increases, and the maxi-
liner paper pulp at concentrations 7.52%, 9.3%, and mum efficiency deviates to large flow.
12.1% was used. The vacuum pressure was changed
from 215 to 240 kPa. The vacuum pressure was Influence of pulp concentration
adjusted at different concentrations, speed, and flow
rate during experiment. The speeds 960, 140, and Figure 7 shows performance curves of different concen-
1500 r/min were controlled by a frequency inverter. The tration pulp, and the performance comparison of MC
head, efficiency, and gas volume fraction were investi- pump at speed 960, 1140, and 1500 r/min is shown in
gated at different consistency pulp, speed, flow rate, Figure 7(a)–(c). In Figure 7, the vacuum pressure
and vacuum pressure. Three experimental data were reaches critical pressure when a little pulp flows out. At
recorded at every condition, and the mean value was pulp concentration 7.52%, MC pump head decreases
calculated. slightly when compared with pumping water, but the
The forms of different concentration pulp are shown head decreases obviously with the increase in concen-
in Figure 4. The pulp acts as solid when the concentra- tration. The efficiency decreases with the decrease in
tion is 12.1%, as shown in Figure 4(a). As water con- concentration. At critical pressure, the gas fraction at
tains in the structure of fiber network, MC pulp does pump outlet is \1%. With the increase in flow rate,
not have flow properties. With the decrease in the con- the gas fraction of pulp at pump outlet increases.
centration, pulp slurry contains more water (see
Figure 4(d)), hence it has a strong flow characteristics. Effect of vacuum pressure
The pulp physical properties are shown in Table 4. The performance curves of MC pump at different
Figure 5 shows the relationship between the shear vacuum pressures are shown in Figure 8. The pulp is
stress and shear rate. When the shear stress was in the discharged from vacuum pump at critical vacuum pres-
turbulent regime, the shear stress increased linearly. sure, which results in a waste pulp. With the increase in
The shear stress increased with shear rate and pulp vacuum pressure, the head increases and the gas frac-
consistency. tion at MC pump outlet decreases. When flow rate is
\100 m3/h flow rate, the head decreases slightly, and
with the flow rate continued to increase, the gas volume
Experimental results
increases, as a result, head decreases sharply. When the
The performance curves of MC pump with pumping vacuum degree is 233 kPa, efficiency is higher than that
water are shown in Figure 6. The pump efficiency, h, at critical vacuum pressure, indicating that there is an
can be expressed as optimal vacuum value. The MC pump can work
Ye and Li 5

Figure 4. The different consistency pulp: (a) Cm = 12.1%, (b) Cm = 9.3%, (c) Cm = 7.52%, and (d) Cm = 5.13%.

Figure 6. Performance curves with pumping water at different

speeds.
Figure 5. Shear stress versus shear rate of kraft liner paper
pulp and several mass concentrations.
6 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 7. Performance curves of different concentration pulp: (a) n = 960 r/min, (b) n = 1140 r/min, and (c) n = 1500 r/min.

without vacuum condition, but with the increase in gas blocks impeller passage when pulp concentration is
flow rate, performance significantly deteriorates, and at 12.1%, so MC pump quickly loses transmission
head and efficiency drop significantly. From capacity. With the increase in vacuum pressure, the
Figure 8(b), as a result of no vacuum, large amount of maximum flow rate increases.
Ye and Li 7

Figure 8. Performance curves of different vacuum pressure: (a) Cm = 7.52%, n = 960 r/min and (b) Cm = 12.1%, n = 1140 r/min.

Figure 9. Performance curves at different speeds: (a) Cm = 9.3% and (b) Cm = 12.1%.

Performance curves at different speeds With the increase in rotational speed, head increases
The performance characteristics at different speeds are and efficiency has no obvious change. As a result of
shown in Figure 9, and concentration Cm at 9.3% and increasing speed, centrifugal force increases, hence the
12.1% is shown in Figure 9(a) and (b), respectively. gas in MC pulp is easily separated. Increasing
8 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 10. Head ratio at different flow rates: (a) Q = 300 m3/h, (b) Q = 450 m3/h, and (c) Q = 500 m3/h.

Hs Es
Table 4. Pulp physical properties. RH = , RE = ð2Þ
Hw Ew
Concentration (%) 7.52 9.3 12.1
where Hs and Es are head and efficiency of pumping
Apparent viscosity (Pa s) 3.68 7.82 12.1 pulp, and HW and EW are head and efficiency of pump-
pH 6.9 6.6 6.5 ing water. At a flow rate 300, 450, and 500 m3/h and
Fiber length (mm) 0.83–1.25
Density (kg/m3) 1007 1024 1051 different concentrations, RH–n curves are shown in
Figure 10. The RH tends to 1, which indicates that
pumping at 7.52% pulp compared with water head has
no significance on decreasing trend. The RH rises at
rotational speed improves gas–liquid separation and
flow rate 300 m3/h and speed 1140 r/min as a result of
rate of gas containing at pump outlet decreases as a
pulp fiber reducing flow loss. With the increase in rota-
result.
tional speed, RH increases at pulp concentration 9.3%,
Without vacuum pump, the gas fraction is acquired
but RH decreases when the concentration is at 12.1%.
by sonar flowmeter, as shown in Table 5. The gas frac-
At flow rate 450 m3/h and 500 m3/h conditions, increas-
tion increases with the increase in pulp concentration,
ing of pumping difficult increases with Pulp concentra-
which coincide with the literature.15
tion, which makes the head ratio falling.
Figure 11 shows that the efficiency ratio, RE,
Head ratio and efficiency ratio changes with rotational speed at different flow rates
The dimensionless analysis is applied to experimental and pulp concentrations. All RE is \1, which shows
comparison. At the same flow rate, head ratio, RH, and that pumping pulp decreases when compared with
efficiency ratio, RE, are expressed as follows water efficiency, and the efficiency ratio decreases with
Ye and Li 9

Figure 11. Efficiency ratio at different flow rates: (a) Q = 300 m3/h, (b) Q = 450 m3/h, and (c) Q = 500 m3/h.

the increase in pulp concentration. At flow rate speed can improve gas–liquid separation and reduce the
300 m3/h, the RE of pulp concentration 7.52% decreases suction vacuum pressure.
with the increase in speed, as shown in Figure 11(a). At
flow rates 450 and 500 m3/h and concentration 9.3%,
the efficiency ratio decreased with the increase in speed. Vacuum pressure at different concentrations and
When pulp concentration is up to 12.1%, the efficiency rotational speed
ratio decreases first and then increases with the increase During experiment, the vacuum pressure degree is
in speed. adjusted according to the flow rate for guaranteeing
the normal operation of MC pump, and the parameters
are shown in Table 6. At the same speed, vacuum pres-
Effects of speed on vacuum pressure and gas sure increases with the increase in pulp concentration.
fraction Vacuum pressure decreases with the decrease in speed.
The vacuum pressure and gas fraction are shown in
Figure 12 at rotational speed 960, 1140, and 1500 r/min.
The concentrations used in Figure 12(a) and (b) are Max flow rate
7.52%, 9.3% and 12.1%. The vacuum pressure and gas Figure 13 shows MC pump performance without
fraction increase with the increase in flow rate, and the vacuum pump, and the maximum flow rate at concen-
gas fraction is \1%. At the same pulp concentration, trations 9.3% and 12.1% is shown in Table 7. Without
vacuum pressure decreases with the increase in rota- vacuum pump, the head of MC pump decreases with
tional speed, which indicates that increasing rotational the increase in flow rate. The MC pump works
10 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Figure 12. Vacuum pressure and gas fraction at different speeds: (a) Cm = 7.52%, (b) Cm = 9.3%, and (c) Cm = 12.1%.
Ye and Li 11

Figure 13. Max flow rate without vacuum pump: (a) Cm = 7.52%, (b) Cm = 9.3%, and (c) Cm = 12.1%.

Table 5. Gas fraction of pulp.

Concentration (%) 0 7.52 9.3 12.1

Gas fraction (%) 0 5.67 8.98 11.73

Table 6. Vacuum pressure at different concentrations and rotational speed.

Concentration, Cm (%) 7.52 (kPa) 9.3 (kPa) 12.1 (kPa)

960 r/min 220 to 226 225 to 229 231 to 235

1140 r/min 218 to 222 223 to 227 228 to 233
1500 r/min 217 to 220 222 to 224 226 to 231

normally without vacuum pump when the pulp concen- shown in Figure 13(b) and (c). The maximum flow rate
tration is at 7.52%. With the increase in pulp consis- decreases with the increase in pulp concentration, but it
tency, the gas in MC pulp increases and the gas blocks increases with the increase in rotational speed, as
impeller channel, hence MC pump stops working, as shown in Table 7.
12 Advances in Mechanical Engineering

Table 7. Max flow rate without vacuum pump.

Speed (r/min) 960 (m3/h) 1140 (m3/h) 1500 (m3/h)

Cm = 9.3% 104.7 179.7 278

Cm = 12.1% 53 118.4 137.91

Conclusion 2. Mason SG. The flocculation of pulp suspensions and the

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pump can work without vacuum condition, but with tency centrifugal stock pump. J Tsinghua Univ: Sci Tech-
the increase in flow rate, performance significantly nol 1998; 1: 5–9.
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With the increase in rotational speed, head increases cessing. World Pumps 2000; 2000: 34–37.
and efficiency has no obvious change. As a result of 9. Rejio V. Medium consistency pumping systems for
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Declaration of conflicting interests
12. Zhuang HF. Research on turbulence generator and gas
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with separation of medium consistency pulp pumps. Master’s
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this Thesis, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China, 2012.
article. 13. Ma XD, Li ZF, Yu H, et al. Experimental study on a
medium consistency pump. J Fluid Eng: T ASME 2013;
Funding 135: 104503.
14. Ma XD. Design and experimental study on medium consis-
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup- tency pump. PhD Thesis, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou,
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this China, 2014.
article: The support of Sichuan province department of edu- 15. Zhong CY. Air content in medium and high consistency
cation (Grant No. 17ZA0363), the Key Project of Xihua pulp. Sichuan Papermak 1993; 1: 45–46.
University (Grant No. Z1620408), Open Fund of Key
Laboratory of Fluid and Power Machinery, Ministry of
Education, Xihua University (Grant No. szjj2016-001) and Appendix 1
National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No
51379179) is gratefully acknowledged. Thanks to my profes- Notation
sor, Li Hong, and our research group for helping me. Ca gas fraction (%)
Cm mass concentration (%)
References Es efficiency of pumping pulp
1. Chen K. High consistency pulping technology and equip- Ew efficiency of pumping water
ment. Guangzhou, China: South China University of H head (m)
Technology Press, 1994. Hs head of pumping pulp
Ye and Li 13

Hw head of pumping water Subscripts

N speed (r/min)
Q flow rate (m3/h) a gas
RE efficiency ratio E efficiency
RH head ratio H head
m pulp mass
h efficiency S pulp
W water