FRAMO SUBMERSIBLE

CARGO PUMP SYSTEM

- JANMENJAY M SAWANT (17GE1557)

• FRAMO Submersible Cargo Pump is a submersible
high pressure hydraulically driven Centrifugal Pump.
• The centrifugal pump is vertical single stage pump
driven by Hydraulic Motor.
• Hydraulic motor gets the pressurised hydraulic oil
from the Power Packs.

• The red section is the high pressure hydraulic oil

going into the hydraulic motor.
• The yellow part is the hydraulic oil return.
• Both these pipes are concentric to each other.

• The hydraulic high pressure pipe is

located inside the low pressure return oil
line.
• The entire hydraulic section is separated
from cargo by the Cofferdam ventilated
to atmosphere.
Q Why FRAMO pumping system ?
.

o No pump room is required

• Explosion risk is minimized
• Increased cargo carrying capacity
• Cargo suction pipes are avoided
• Cheaper construction

o Complete segregation of different cargo

• No contamination
• Faster tank cleaning
• No need for cleaning of suction lines

o Submerged pump
• No suction pipe and suction losses
• Enables handling of volatile liquids, high viscosity cargo & high specific gravity cargo.
• More grades of cargo can be carried without mixing grades.
COMPONENTS OF FRAMO
CARGO PUMP SYSTEM
1. Hydraulic Motor
• In FRAMO system the energy required to rotate the impeller of
centrifugal pump is provided by the hydraulic motor using the
pressurized hydraulic oil.
• Hydraulic motor converts pressure energy of high hydraulic oil
pressure to rotational energy to rotate the impeller.

• High pressure oil enters the motor. It rotates the shaft

and low pressure oil leaves the motor.
2. Power Pack
• Power packs supply high pressure hydraulic oil to the Framo hydraulic motor.
• Power packs are either installed in the forecastle store or in the engine room of the ship.

• Power pack system consists of

1. A hydraulic oil tank to draw the oil from
2. A High pressure pump to take suction from the Hydraulic
tanks and pump this oil into the hydraulic pipeline on
deck
3. A Electric motor to run the High pressure pump
Trips of power pack
o Hydraulic oil tank should always have sufficient oil for the high pressure pump. If it has less or no oil,
the pump will get damaged.
o There are two safe guards in the Framo system to ensure this.

1. “Closed suction line” trip

• If the suction valve for the high pressure pump is

closed, the power pack will trip. 

• This ensures that the suction valve of the pump to

take suction from hydraulic tank is not inadvertently
closed.

• There is a sensor arrangement for the suction valve,

which senses if the suction valve is fully open.

• The alarm for the trip will display in cargo control

room as well as Engine control room.
Trips of power pack
2. “Low Oil Level” trip
• The power pack can loose suction if there isn’t
sufficient oil in the hydraulic tank. For this reason when
the oil level in the hydraulic tank goes below minimum
level, the power pack will trip.

• The oil level in the hydraulic tank is kept just above the
alarm level. This ensures that any leakage in the line will
be immediately detected without the loss of much of
hydraulic oil.

• There are two alarms for low level

Low Level alarms : Alarm in Cargo Control Room
and Engine Control Room
Low Low level Alarm : Hydraulic oil system (Power
pack) will trip.
3. Cofferdam and Purging Routine
• The pump is inside the cargo tank and there are two liquids
(hydraulic oil and cargo) that should not come in contact.

• If the hydraulic oil leak into the cargo, cargo will get damage.
• If cargo goes into the hydraulic oil, the hydraulic system will
damage.

• Therefore, there is hydraulic seal that prevents hydraulic oil

leakage to the cargo side.
• And there is cargo seal that prevents cargo leaking into the
hydraulic side.

• Leakage from any of these seal overtime can be detected

using cofferdam.
• cofferdam as a steel cup with cargo seal at the bottom. Any
hydraulic oil or cargo leakage will collect in this cofferdam.
• It is important to know if the cofferdam is empty or not. And
this is done by purging the cofferdam.
Purging of Cofferdam

• Introduce air or nitrogen in the cofferdam and check the

outlet of the purging line.

• If we just get the air in outlet of purging line, the cofferdam

is empty. So no leakage of hydraulic oil or cargo and both
the seals are intact.
• If we get cargo in the cofferdam, it indicates that the cargo
seal of the Framo pump is leaking.
• If we get Hydraulic oil in the cofferdam, it indicates that
Hydraulic oil seal of the framo pump is leaking.
• If we get mixture of Hydraulic oil and cargo, it indicates that
both oil seal and cargo seal are leaking.

• If any of the seal is leaking, it need to be replaced with new

seal after the discharging and tank cleaning of the tank.
4. STC (Speed Torque Controller) Valve

• STC is fitted on top plate of the pump on main deck.

• The Hydraulic oil inlet pass through the STC.

• STC of the pump controls the speed of the pump by

allowing only the required amount of hydraulic oil to
pass through to the hydraulic motor.

• STC also prevent the pump to over speed by controlling

the amount of oil to the hydraulic motor of the pump.

• There are two ways to control the speed of the pump

through STC.
i. From the local control on the STC
ii. From the cargo control room
I. From the local control on the STC

• With local control valve, we can control the speed of the

pump locally from the pump itself. This becomes handy
during stripping of the tanks or tank cleaning.

• Local control valve is a kind of knob located on the STC.

When we close the knob (by turning clockwise), the STC
passes the oil to the pump.

• When we open the knob (by turning anti clockwise), the

STC bypasses all the oil and nothing goes into the hydraulic
motor. Pump stops or do not run in this case.

• By partially closing the local control valve, we can adjust

the speed of the pump.
II. From the cargo control room
• Speed of the pump (or we can say operation of STC) can also be controlled by a lever provided in the
cargo control room.
• Each pump has a lever that connects with the STC of that pump by a hydraulic control line.
• As we push the lever up to start the pump, a signal in form of hydraulic control line pressure goes to the
STC.
• STC then releases the amount of oil to the hydraulic motor which will be corresponding to the amount
to lever lifted.
Remote start and Local start
• Both, the remote start from CCR and local start from the pump location are interconnected.

• The pump cannot start from local control if the pump Lever is not pushed up from the CCR. Same goes
other way around.
• If the local control knob is in open position, the pump will not work even when the pump lever is
operated from CCR.
• So for the pump to operate, STC need to have the signal from both from local control valve as well as
remote lever in CCR.

• To start the pump from local control

i. Open the local control valve by rotating it anti clockwise.
ii. Push the lever up from the CCR.
iii. Operate the pump locally by slowly closing the local control valve.

• To start the pump from CCR

i. Close the local control valve by rotating it clock wise.
ii. From CCR , push the lever up to start the pump
5. Feed Pump
For Framo system to work efficiently, hydraulic oil used in the system need to be in absolute good condition.

Degradation in quality of hydraulic oil can occur because of

• Moisture ingress due to hydraulic lines being in vacuum due to temperature variation.
• Air in the system that can cause vibrations, frothing of the oil etc.
• Small particles that can be inside the oil during filling of hydraulic oil tank or after a maintenance on the
system

Feed pump takes care of all of these issues.

• Feed pump always keep on running, 365 days in a year, 24 hours a day.
• Feed pump maintains positive pressure of 5 bars in the lines and hydraulic system. So the chances of
moisture ingress are minimum
• It continuously recirculate the oil through entire hydraulic oil system.
• Air if any is auto released to the Hydraulic tank while recirculation.
• Avoids oil temperature variations at different parts of the hydraulic system.
• The recirculated oil is made to pass through the filter so any particles in the system are filtered.
THANK YOU