Industrial Pumps Blog

Globally, oil production trends have mitigated towards increasing pipeline diameters and greater oil volume throughput from both onshore and offshore oil fields to downstream production facilities.  In part this trend is fuelled by a need to reduce the carbon footprint of the producer but also to reduce the cost of production using economies of scale, reduced maintenance and replacement cycles and increasing efficiency and reliability.

In addition, much of the global transportation infrastructure is in the middle of a huge reorganization and refit, so many of the previously accepted standards are being revised in the light of modern and forecasted developments.

The largest three-screw crude oil pipeline pump is capable of being fitted into 24 inch diameter pipes and can pump 85,000 barrels of oil per day under 2,000 pounds per square inch.  The oil industry needs the capacity of these new generation pumps to meet the stringent constraints being imposed upon them by the environmental lobbyists and government agencies involved, but at the same time by shareholders who have experienced a severe battering in the economic situation prevailing at present.

Centrifugal pumps no longer can be relied upon to deliver the reduced carbon footprint or the financial benefits.  It is not simply these two key factors which have stimulated the development of positive displacement pump technology; new generation pumps are capable of being retrofitted to old-style infrastructure which provides even greater scope for cost savings and carbon reduction.

Crude oil pipeline designs are increasingly calling for positive vane displacement pumps because of the cost savings and the 30 year track record of this pump type in some of the most extreme and harshest environments encountered in the world.  Screw pump operation also delivers high volume/high operating efficiency with increased maintenance and replacement cycles such that where fitted, the operator can experience up to 30% reduction in overall costs associated with the installation.

Noise and vibration form a key side effect of almost any industrial application or process you can think of.  They are also negative factors for a number of reasons – they are pollutants, they may harm human operators and persons in the vicinity, they may adversely affect performance and indeed, excessive noise and vibration is symptomatic of energy and operational inefficiency involved in the process.

There are also instances where for operational reasons, noise and vibration must be minimized.  The French Navy has recently placed an order for ultra-silent industrial pumps to be fitted to its new class of “Suffren” submarines.  When a submarine is engaged on duty or operations, it is essential that the vessel can operate under the strictest standards of silence to evade detection by the enemy.

In such instances, there is no alternative but to deal with the noise and vibration issue.

Industrial pumps and fluid handling systems contribute a large portion of the noise and vibration associated with any industrial or military process (obviously this applies only in normal circumstances).  Traditional centrifugal pump technology utilizes techniques which are themselves, very noisy and contribute to vibration production.  By definition, greater part movement and friction creation is implicit in the operation of centrifugal pumps which makes them inappropriate for designs intended to meet high environmental and operating efficiency levels.

To this end, it is noticeable that positive displacement technology is increasingly being used by commercial and military operators seeking to deliver noise and vibration free side effects of their activities.  Positive displacement pumps and valves are also much more efficient in terms of consumption of energy and enjoy greatly reduced operating costs due to extended maintenance and replacement cycles.  The new French submarines for instance, are utilizing positive displacement pumps, rather than old-style centrifugal technology which cannot deliver the same operational standards of silence and reliability as the newer technology.

VT Shipbuilder was involved in delivering two shipbuilding contracts but it faced problems with a supplier list which was disparate and uncoordinated. Issues frequently arose when it came to sourcing industrial pumps which were not only the best choice for the immediate build, but would also continue to contribute to the bottom line of both the shipbuilder and its clients when it came to the maintenance and replacement cycles.

The issue was compounded with suppliers being unable to deliver a coordinated or broad product range which was interchangeable, resulting in considerable delays and costs involved with redesign and refit issues throughout the project.  It was impossible to get the agreement of Supplier A to handle pump and valve infrastructure handled by Supplier B, or at least with any meaningful SLA.

Relationships between suppliers was also not as strong as it ought to have been, particularly where contracts relied on strong relationships which would be capable of subsisting for years into the future if maintenance and replacement contracts were to be honored.

VT Shipbuilders embarked on a paring down of the supplier lists and in respect of industrial pump and fluid handling technology, it eventually chose to partner with one large supplier who owned a broad range of brands and products.  This allowed VT Shipbuilders to tap into the design and engineering resources of a partner who had a broad understanding of the differing application, positive advantages and negative aspects of each and every pump installation.  Both positive displacement and centrifugal technology could be employed without competing financial interest of differing suppliers who were more interested in getting a contract irrespective of the operational appropriateness.

By streamlining its industrial pump supplier, VT Shipbuilding strengthened its supplier relationship immensely which brought several advantages, not least the ability to negotiate better financial terms and higher SLA’s for delivery of a wide range of pump and valve technology.

Excessive maintenance requirements on older lubrication pumps will quickly result in direct cost increases associated with excessive downtime due to maintenance.  Further, when ancillary pump systems such as lubrication pumps, require maintenance downtime out of synch with the main power plant maintenance schedule this serves to further increase both direct and indirect costs associated with running an older lubrication pump system.

A major Southeastern US electric utility company was in this exact position with a lubrication system serving GE 7F gas turbine generation plants.  The older lubrication pumps were experiencing high failure rates resulting in loss of operating revenue and increased maintenance costs as a direct consequence of unscheduled major maintenance.

The solution was to replace the older lubrication pumps with modern equipment which led directly to a three-fold increase in the unscheduled maintenance interval.  A further direct and indirect cost saving was achieved by acquiring the ability to synchronize scheduled maintenance of the lubrication system with the turbine fleet.  The end result of this project was to extend the scheduled major maintenance from an annual basis to every three years which relieved the adverse impact of both excessive scheduled and unscheduled maintenance on operating and financial performance.

An initial objection to conducting such a swap-out is that the though the initial costs are outweighed by the operating benefits, the downtime involved in effecting the swap out will lead to unacceptable levels of base performance from the turbine fleet.  This can be obviated by using a “plug and play” approach; the swap-out can be achieved in far less time and with vastly reduced downtime if the replacement units can be fitted onto the existing mountings – by having the ability to simply removing the old pump and fitting the new replacements directly onto the existing mountings, the installation can be achieved in far less time.  By using a solution provider prepared to work with the existing infrastructure, installation downtime was minimized while allowing the utility to take advantage of the greatly improved maintenance situation.

“Small is Beautiful” may not typically be the first thing on people’s minds when they consider nuclear power.  The stereotypical image of a nuclear reactor is of enormous, bulky and alien looking power generation plants with a high risk tag attached to them!

Nevertheless, smaller is one of the design trends which is occupying the minds and energies of power generation innovators and “Blue Sky Thinkers” with micro-reactor plants being considered as well as moving towards passive cooling systems which do not require the multiple-redundancy layers of coolant and power supply redundancy that forced coolant reactors require.

Forced coolant reactors rely upon a complex and multiple redundancy system to ensure reactor safety.  This also requires exceptional planning and risk scenario forecasting on the part of designers and operators as they attempt to come to terms with “What If” game playing and worst case scenarios that must be anticipated and have a solution prescribed in order to ensure safe operation.  So far, the United States has managed to ensure an excellent safety track record in the last fifty years but the potential for hazard is still there – we only need to remember the risk posed by the Long Island incident.

Passive cooling does not require any forcing of coolant around the reactor and because there is no requirement to force coolant, there is no requirement for the multiple redundancy layers of protection to be incorporated into the design.  This has an obvious impact on the cost of constructing and operating passive coolant reactors but does a passive cooling system make for a safer power generating plant?

The short answer is “No!”  The risks inherent in operating a nuclear power plant still remain and the advantage of using a passive cooling system lies in the savings in capital and operating costs.  This said, smaller reactors do use reduced “source terms” which are utilized in accident and risk scenario computations, but smaller means “more” in this instance, as such reactors are envisioned for use to provide power for individual office blocks and neighborhood zones – the risk is simply being transferred over wider areas with larger numbers of small, passive cooled reactor plants.

The three key metrics for measuring power plant operations are Uptime, Availability and Reliability.

Power plant engineers and operators need to rely on pumping systems to ensure all three metrics are maximized in order to meet contractual power supply standards as well as operate profitably.  Mission critical applications must be designed and maintained to the highest possible standards as the contractual penalties as well as lost revenues created by downtime or impeded power production can and will be fatal to the operator.

Operators and engineers must ensure they are supported by a supply partner with deep application experience and a wide range of high efficiency pumps and fluid control systems as well as the hands-on knowledge that comes only from operating an extensive network of installations in a variety of challenging environments.

Many installations and processes employ a range of skill sets with considerable cross-fertilization of knowledge gained from handling different power plant types – fossil fuels, diesel and oil, hydro and nuclear facilities.  In addition, techniques and skills employed in moving one type of fluid can be used to help in delivering results in other circumstances – you need a solutions partner with experience and skills in fluid control with crude oil, distillate oil, kerosene, bio-diesel, residual oil and NAPTHA.

Experience is also needed in delivering solutions and equipment for power generation systems for the Balance of Plant and ancillary power generation equipment used in water removal and water-oil separation.  In addition, there are ancillary pumping operations and applications which require the ability to deliver lubrication, fuel oil injection, water purging and fuel oil forwarding and transfer as part of an integrated and holistic approach to power plant management.

By combining the experience, skills and broad product range from a solutions partner, power plant operators can ensure maximization of plant availability, uptime and reliability.  

With dwindling oil reserves it has become economically feasible to tap oil fields which less than ten years ago would not have been commercially viable.  Crude oil production is now taking place in some of the most remote locations on the globe and under the harshest of conditions both on land and at sea.  Getting the crude out of the ground is a major challenge but the work is only beginning once it is brought to the surface – the raw product must then be transported over great distances via a complex network of pipeline, intermediate pumping stations, treated and refined into the various petroleum products our modern life depends upon.

This is a high energy process and energy is not cheap, especially in remote oil producing locations which are more the norm today.

Modern oil production must take account of cost with far tighter margins than the 1970’s when only reliability and high availability of the production operation were required.  Today, modern oil producers must ensure they are using energy efficient extraction and processing methods and are subject to the most stringent emissions and environmental controls that the industry has ever encountered in its history.  This economic and regulatory environment is only going to become harder for production companies with the imminent introduction of carbon control regimes on a global basis as well as targeting specific industries, the oil industry is at the top of that list!

Oil producers are relying more than ever on established and trusted partners to provide fluid handling systems that deliver real Total Savings of Ownership (TSO) and provide reliable solutions which increase production and investment returns while operating in the hardest environments, both physical and economic.  This demands a solution provider which is capable of delivering multiple fluid handling systems and ancillary support during installation and operation wherever the equipment is being used today.

The United States Navy has been defending America for well over 200 years and modern naval warfare environments provide exceptional challenges to operational and weapon systems functionality.  Modern naval weapons system rely heavily upon state of the art engineering systems which must be capable of functioning in sea-to- sea, sea-to-land and sea-to- air combat engagements.

Weapon systems from gun turret control through to hydraulic launch systems for carrier based aircraft rely upon a range of fluid handling components which are critical to the combat effectiveness of warships under the most demanding conditions that may be encountered at sea.

Under combat and peacetime conditions, fluid handling systems must deliver exceptional performance with “always available” reliability.  They are literally mission-critical systems demanding low noise, optimal design for performance and fast replacement as well as cross-substitution between on board systems and other ships.  Low weight solutions are mandated to maintain operational performance of US Navy vessels but at the same time, systems must be capable of enduring extreme conditions, including an ability to withstand combat damage and yet continue to operate effectively.

Hydraulic failure can render a US Navy carrier combat ineffective and render an entire Battle Group severely exposed or combat ineffective if aircraft cannot be launched.  Fluid systems must be highly resilient and the safety of the fleet relies directly upon system resiliency and dependability.  More than this, there must be long mean times between failure and short mean times to repair – downtime due to failure or maintenance must be kept to an absolute minimum to ensure high availability.

While exceptionally high levels of functionality must be delivered under extreme weight and engineering parameters, the US Department of defense also operates under tight budgetary constraints as well.

Nowhere else in the world are hydraulic fluid systems under such pressure both in delivering exceptional products and utility for dollar spend.