Development of the experimental equation for the centrifugal pump efficiency reduction when handling viscous fluid

The centrifugal pump performance impaired, when it handles high viscosity fluids in comparison to service with water, due to increased the disc friction losses over outsides of the impeller shroud and hub. In the present paper a centrifugal pump manufactured by Pumpiran has been tested on a test bed for different industrial oil’s as well as water. The kinematic viscosities are 1, 20, 43 and 62 CSt. The results obtained from different oil tests indicate that head and efficiency are decreased with increasing the viscosity. First the flow rate, head and efficiency correction factors are obtained for viscose fluids. Finally according to the experimental results an exponential equation which shows the variation of efficiency versus the viscosity of fluid is proposed.

Keywords:

Experiment , Centrifugal Pump , efficiency , Viscous Fluid