MATEC Web of Conferences 225, 05011 (2018) https://doi.org/10.
1051/matecconf/201822505011
UTP-UMP-VIT SES 2018
Centrifugal Pump Performance Characteristics
for Domestic Application
Aisyah Jilani1 and Akhtar Razali*
1
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, 26600 Pekan, Pahang, Malaysia
Abstract. Water pressure problems at home can be quite frustrating in daily
life which is comes in different ways of complication. It may take forever
for the faucets to fill a bathtub, or a slow spray shower head and longer time
taken for the washing machine to run a cycle. The problem can be fixed by
installing a pressure booster pump. This research is embarked to study on a
centrifugal pump performance with a view to analyse pressure built-up and
flowrate in pipe at fixed speed. A simple and inexpensive test rig is
developed to resemble water distribution for domestic use; i.e. house
application. The method is then experimentally validated to measured and
analysed the pump performance such as water pressure, water flowrate,
power of pump and pump speed. Since the centrifugal pump are added, the
pump is able to boost the water flowrate. However, since the centrifugal
pump work at constant speed, the water pressure in pipe is high when the
water demand is low. The maximum pressure inside the pipe was 28.24 psi
which quite high and exceed the piping standards. Power consumption also
remained constant approximately 0.500 kWh when water demand was low
which led to energy wastage.
1 Introduction
Water is plentifully available natural resource on earth and can be renewable. 70% of the
Earth’s surface are covers with water but only portable for 3% of the water. Water has been
used for multiple purpose such as agricultural field, industrial usage and domestic purposes.
The speedy development of technology and science improved the flow meter designs and
other sensors to attain good water supply through pipes and storage tanks [1]. A pump is a
machine that expends energy which is to increase the water pressure and move it from a point
to another point. A centrifugal pump transmit energy to the liquid which means a centrifugal
force that produced by the rotating impeller [2]. It is also increase the pressure by converting
mechanical energy from the motor to the water through the rotating impeller. The water
discharge from the inlet to the centre of impeller and exit along its blades. The force of
centrifugal hereby boost the water velocity and also transformed the kinetic energy to
pressure consequently. Centrifugal pump is also a type of kinetic pump that used in
applications that requires moderate-to-high and low pressure flow. Generally centrifugal
pump is ruling equations that are based on energy conservation law [3-4]. It is also widely
*
Corresponding author: [email protected]
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
MATEC Web of Conferences 225, 05011 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201822505011
UTP-UMP-VIT SES 2018
used because of their head, design simplicity, high efficiency, smooth flow rate, ease of
operation and maintenance and wide range of capacity [5].
The major advantages of a centrifugal pump also includes its higher operating speeds,
lifting highly viscous liquids for example muddy and sewage water, oils, chemicals, sugar
molasses, paper pulp, and higher discharging capacity which are against with the
reciprocating pumps which only can handle small quantity of liquid relatively operating at
comparative slower speeds that is limited to pure water or less viscous liquids that free from
impurities limited in considerations of separation, frequent choking troubles and cavitation
[6-7]. The differential pressure or head created by the pump is used to transmit energy to the
water, and overcome the frictional losses in the piping system. The pump itself also acquire
energy losses at the impeller, bearings and casing. Thus, the useful power that composed by
the pump is only part of the power that used to its shaft from the motor [8-9]. The centrifugal
pump also widely used for domestic application that applied as water booster at home which
eject the water rapidly to all valves through the piping system.
The centrifugal pump characteristic curves show the law and relationship of each
parameter, and it is the pump performance expression, which has significant function in
production process. The quantity of flow (Q) and the pump head (H) are two major
parameters among the performance parameters of the centrifugal pump. The H-Q curves
shape have a direct effect on the stability operation of centrifugal pump and flow regulation
range. This pump also need a variable value of torque based on speed. In simple way, torque
is proportional to the square of the speed which is when the speed is doubled, so the torque
is raised by a factor of four (22 = 4) [10]. The consumption of energy in a centrifugal pump
system highly rely on an electric drive. For example, at a constant speed operation, it is
mandatory to use throttle valves to regulate either the pressure or flow but it was old method
and used a lot of energy which is lead to energy crisis [11-12].
2 Methods and equipments
There are two factors for methodology which are various pipe opening and the number of
pipes open to see the pressure drop. In this experiment, the static head was neglected. Several
steps were taken to analyse the centrifugal pump operation with multiple valves. The first
step is to install the experimental rig that contains sensors to measure flow rate and pressure,
Arduino UNO microcontroller, power analyser, centrifugal pump, piping setup that similar
to what is in a terrace house, a tank and 6 valves. Arduino is an open source hardware and
software platform that build on the ARM micro controller and Atmel A VR. Due to its cheap
price, flexible and convenient, rapid development and widely used application, especially in
many system prototype based on design of sensor [13]. An Arduino can read information
from input devices such as Sensors, Antenna, Trimmer(potentiometer) and others and also
can send information to output devices for example LCD Screen, LED, DC motor and
speakers [14]. Secondly, setup coding for sensor in the microcontroller to display the value
that read by the sensor. The last step is testing run the pump for few minutes and check the
value that displayed on LCD.
The water flowed from the water tank and move to the centrifugal pump which
conversion of energy happened. The pump that was used in this work are DSH3 (702-24pc)
model which operated with power of 0.7hp – 0.5hp. The pump converts the rotational kinetic
energy to the hydrodynamic energy of the water flow and accelerate the water by the impeller
outward to the exits which is called diffuser. Fluid that flow rapidly exit from the pump then
go through the flowrate sensor and the value of water flowrate are displayed on LCD. Flow
rate can be defined likely by various techniques like difference in velocity or kinetic energy.
In this experiment, flow rate is determined by change in water velocity. Velocity of the water
depends on the pressure that forces through the pipelines. As the cross-sectional area of pipe
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MATEC Web of Conferences 225, 05011 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201822505011
UTP-UMP-VIT SES 2018
is known and remains unchanged, the average velocity is a prefiguration of the flow rate [15].
Next, the water goes through the pressure sensor that attached with the Arduino
microcontroller and the pressure gauge which flow exit to the open valves. Microcontroller
is used to monitor the sensor with which LCD is interfaced to display the flow rate of water
and water pressure in pipe. The direction flow of water is illustrated in the schematic diagram
shown in Figure 1.
6 valves are used to test the water pressure and flowrates which is represent as water tap
or shower in a terrace house as illustrates in Figure 2. The valves are open one by one to
analyse the water flowrate and pressure in pipe. There are two types of valves opening which
are half open and full open. The pipes are open for an hour to get the energy and power value
to see the pump performance.
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of experiment flow.
Fig. 2. Piping of water distribution in a terrace house.
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MATEC Web of Conferences 225, 05011 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201822505011
UTP-UMP-VIT SES 2018
3 Results and discussion
The data results obtained from the experimental rig testing can be seen in Table 1 which
displayed the value of water pressure and water flowrate based on the quantity of pipe that
open synchronously. To differentiate the pressure and water flowrate, the experiments was
also performed at two types of valve opening which are half open and full open as stated in
the Table 1. The power of each number of valves have small difference gaps probably due to
tolerance of the device itself since the pump horsepower is around 0.7 – 0.5hp and been tested
for an hour. The power of the pump remains constant since the speed of the pump remain
unchanged even the pressure, flowrate and number of pipes are fluctuating.
Table 1. Pressure, flowrate and power reading.
Valve open Pressure (psi) Power (kWh) Flowrate (lpm)
Half 28.24 0.508 16.38
1 valve
Full 10.01 0.506 27.79
Half 18.15 0.505 24.88
2 valves
Full 4.50 0.509 32.13
Half 9.50 0.507 29.70
3 valves
Full 3.11 0.503 33.34
Half 5.27 0.504 33.59
4 valves
Full 2.70 0.501 33.68
Half 4.64 0.500 33.86
5 valves
Full 2.52 0.508 34.59
Half 3.77 0.503 34.51
6 valves
Full 2.08 0.502 34.67
The graph as seen in Fig. 3 illustrates the pressure and water flowrate in pipe for certain
number of valves open. It can be seen that half open and full open valve have similar pattern
which are the pressure decrease as the number or valve open increase. In Fig. 3 also, the water
flowrate increases when the number of valves open increase. For fully open valve, flowrate
gap difference is bigger than half open valve. The less number of valve open, the higher the
pressure inside the pipe. This is because, the less number of valve open, the smaller the cross
sectional area of opening valve which increased the pressure inside the pipe and restrict the
water to flow out and naturally slowing down the water flow rate.
An open valve has the same value of power consumption with the maximum open valve
which lead to wasteful energy and power consumption. Moreover, with power 0.50hp for a
single open valve, it decelerates the water flowrate inside the pipe and put extra pressure to
the pipe surface and probably can cause leakage. High water pressure may feel goof in the
shower, but the stronger the water hits the inside of the pipes, the bigger the risk of eventual
leaks. In utmost cases, incorrect water pressure inside the pipe can cause pipes to burst. In
more regular cases, excess water pressure causes taps or fixtures to leak sporadically. When
water pressure is too high, water starts to drip out of taps, toilets, and showers. Over an
extended period of time, the loss of water can add up to a lot of water and as a precious
resource, water should be conserved [16]. High water pressure start to erode the pipes and
over the time can caused major damage to household plumbing. The ‘water hammer’ term is
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MATEC Web of Conferences 225, 05011 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201822505011
UTP-UMP-VIT SES 2018
used to describe the loud banging noise when highly water pressure encounters a valve. For
half open valve case, the smaller the opening of the valve, the slower the water flowrate. The
reduced flow rate would reduce the pressure loss in the pipes, which resulting in more
pressure.
45 40
40 35
35 30
Water flowrate (lpm)
Water pressure (psi)
30
25
25
20
20
15
15
10 10
5 5
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
No. of open valve
Pressure Half open valve
Pressure Full open valve
Flowrate Half open valve
Flowrate Full open valve
Fig. 3. Graph of pressure in pipe and water flowrate for half and full open valve.
4 Conclusion
This experiment was done particularly to analyse the use of centrifugal pump which is
constant speed pump for domestic application. The experimental observation showed that
constant speed pump has high water pressure especially for low water demand which
decreased the lifespan of the pump because of overworked and lead to pipe leakage due to
over pressured in the pipe caused by the fluctuating water demand in a house. The maximum
pressure was 28.24 psi which is quite high and exceed the standards in water distribution
piping. The data also showed that the energy of the pump produced were maximum value
0.509 kW even for low water demand which caused high power and energy wastage.
Constant-speed systems have served the industry and residential area well for many years,
but technological enhancements increase just like the consumer’s energy utility bill.
Therefore, more experiments are needed to extend the lifespan of the centrifugal pump for
example by creating variable speed system. With the pressure on the consultant to improve
the system for energy efficiency, the variable-speed system has turn into fascinating option
in the 21st Century economy.
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MATEC Web of Conferences 225, 05011 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201822505011
UTP-UMP-VIT SES 2018
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