Hydraulic performance and erosive wear of centrifugal slurry pumps - A review

Centrifugal pumps are being extensively used for hydraulic transportation of solids over short and medium distances through pipelines where the requirements of head and discharge are moderate. The performance characteristics and erosion wear of the pump components are the most critical design and selection parameters. An improvement in performance reduces the energy expenditure while the reduction in erosion wear enhances the service life. Efforts have been made to estimate the reduction in water performance of the pump for handling different types of solid particles and to find methods to mitigate it. Different correlations were proposed to estimate the pump performance handling slurry. Regarding the erosion of the pump components, different techniques were used to identify the zones of maximum localized wear and to suggest an approach to reduce it. In the present paper, experimental and numerical studies undertaken in this area have been discussed. For the optimized pump design, selection of the pump material, properties of the solid particles, flow characteristic of the slurry and the concentration of the solids play a significant role. The review summarizes the current state of the art of estimation of pump performance and wear characteristics of the pump. The pump design needs to be optimized for handling slurries based on the drop in performance and expected service life. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.