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Pump Ed 101

Joe Evans, Ph.D.

Parallel Pumping (Part One):


Parallel and Not So Parallel

S
uppose, for a moment, that
Series & Parallel Operation Identical Pumps
you are lounging on a beach
somewhere in the vicinity of 300
290
the equator. If you were to draw side 276
by side two lines in the sand, both 262
heading due north, they will appear 250 246
One Pump
parallel. Although our brains will see 228 Parallel
them as parallel, they are not and—if Series
204
extended—will eventually intersect 200

at the magnetic North Pole. Often 180


Head (ft)

pumps operating in parallel can fool


150 138 150
us into thinking that the expected 131
123
flow will be much greater than the 145
138 114
131
actual flow. 123 102
100 114 90
The general rules that describe 102 75
the head and flow of two identical, 90

centrifugal pumps operating in series 75


50
or parallel are simple. When operat-
ing in series, flow remains the same
as a single pump, but head is doubled
0
at each flow point. In parallel opera- 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400
tion, head remains the same as a Gallons Per Minute
single pump, but flow is doubled at
each head point. Figure 1 illustrates Figure 1

these rules. The blue curve is the one


Simplex produced by a single pump while the
140
green and red curves result from series
H4HX 1750 RPM, Trim 10", 71% eff
121
and parallel operation.
120
It would be nice if predicting
105 105 parallel pump flow could always be
100
95 95 this simple, but in reality, the system
87 87 conditions dictate the maximum rate
80 79 79 of flow. For example, a typical sewage
Head (ft)

72 72
65 65
lift station illustrates the importance
60
57 57 of evaluating pump performance
49 49 against the actual system curve.
40 Figure 2 shows the performance
Simplex Duplex
System Curve Design Flow of two identical wastewater pumps
20 operating in a simplex and duplex
300' 6" Steel Pipe (parallel) environment. The black
0 system curve is composed of a static
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 head of 47-ft and the friction head
Gallons Per Minute
produced by 300-ft of 6-in steel
Figure 2 pipe. Valves and fittings increase the
“equivalent” pipe length to 381-ft.

10 MARCH 2008 www.pump-zone.com PUMPS & SYSTEMS


The black marker on the curve represents Simplex
the simplex design flow of 600-gpm, and 120

it intersects the single pump, H/Q curve 109


H4HX 1750 RPM, Trim 9.5", 71% eff
at 65-ft. As flow increases so does the
100
system head, and the system curve crosses 93 93
the duplex H/Q curve at approximately
83 83
79-ft. 80

The result is a maximum duplex or 74 74

Head (ft)
parallel flow of about 800-gpm, not the 66 66
60 60 60
doubling some of us may have expected.
52 52
(It should also be noted that each pump 45 45
is operating at 400-gpm, which is 25 per- 40
37 37
cent below BEP. We will address this in Simplex Duplex
detail next month.) An 800-gpm peak 20
System Curve Design Flow

flow may be adequate in some cases, but


300' 8" Steel Pipe
if not, the conditions that influence the
system curve will have to change. Figure 3 0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700
shows the same application with a couple Gallons Per Minute
of system changes. The discharge pipeline
size has been increased to 8-in, and the Figure 3
pump impellers have undergone a small
trim that allows them to meet the new design point head. The head is reduced substantially due to the increased pipe diam-
result is a system that performs quite a bit differently than the eter. The original simplex design flow requires just 52-ft while
previous one. duplex operation requires 60-ft. The result is a duplex flow
Although the static head remains the same, the friction of 1000-gpm, or an increase of 200-gpm above that of the

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PUMPS & SYSTEMS www.pump-zone.com MARCH 2008 11
Pump Ed 101

previous example. Additionally, the decreased friction reduces maximum in-flow with a single pump. In these designs, the
the power required at design flow from approximately 14-hp purpose of a duplex system is simply to extend pump life
(6-in pipe) to 11-hp. Under duplex operation, the 24-hp through alternation and provide back up in the case of a pump
required to produce 800-gpm in Figure 2 is reduced to just failure. Others are designed for parallel operation, but maxi-
22-hp at 1000-gpm. mum flow can vary substantially. In some cases, the “as built”
Some duplex lift stations are not designed to accommo- system will differ from the original design. I have seen this
date parallel operation. Instead, the pumps are sized to meet many times in subdivision wastewater stations (and also in the
domestic water and circulation piping
in commercial buildings). Often, these
field changes are not communicated
to the design engineer and the original
drawings are seldom updated. These
changes can affect both parallel opera-
tion and the ability of a single pump to
meet its design flow.
In addition to the influence of the
system curve, there are several other
important conditions that should be
considered when operating pumps in
parallel. These include use of non-iden-
tical pumps, stable versus non-stable
H/Q curves and various methods of
VFD control. Next month we will take
a detailed look at these topics and show
how they can affect both constant pres-
sure and lift station applications.

The Excel spreadsheets that produced


Figures 1 to 3 are available for download
on my website. Look for “Series-Parallel
Pumping Calculator” and “Simplex-
Duplex System Curve Analyzer.” The first
one allows you to compare identical or
non-identical pumps, operating in series
or parallel, to a simple system curve. The
latter allows comparison of simplex and
duplex lift station pumps to the more com-
plex system curves produced by a combi-
nation of vertical lift, force main pressure
and friction.

P&S

Joe Evans is the western regional man-


ager for Hydromatic Engineered Waste
Water Systems, a division of Pentair
Water, 740 East 9th Street Ashland,
OH 44805. He can be reached at joe.
evans@pentairwater.com, or via his
website at www.pumped101.com. If
there are topics that you would like to
see discussed in future columns, drop
him an email.
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Efficiency. We put all
our energy into it.

Think about ITT.

In an industry that accounts for 20 percent of the world’s


energy usage, it’s important to know that the pumps you
use are among the most energy efficient. That‘s why at ITT
we are constantly working to improve the energy efficiency
of our products. It’s also the reason why we developed
the world’s most efficient wastewater pump, which uses
40 percent less energy than anything else in its class.
www.ittfluidbusiness.com

The “ITT Engineered Blocks” symbol; and “Engineered for life” are registered trademarks of ITT Industries. ©2008 circle 108 on card or go to psfreeinfo.com

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