Hydraulic pumps are essential pieces of
equipment for many industrial and manufacturing operations. Any
inefficiencies in hydraulic pump operations significantly increase
overhead costs for facilities and cut into a company's bottom line.
Fortunately, you can optimize hydraulic
pump energy consumption in numerous ways. The following are seven
ways to reduce hydraulic pump energy consumption.
1. Properly Sizing the Pump
Pump size and motor size are essential
considerations when optimizing energy consumption. Sizing issues
often occur when engineers try to bring in a safety factor at the
design stage. This leads to pump oversizing issues that increase
maintenance needs and energy consumption.
2. Selecting the Right Pump Type for
the Application
Numerous factors distinguish individual
pumps. Industrial and manufacturing facilities must carefully analyze
factors such as drive type, needed power, ancillary equipment
availability, speed, and mechanical seal type of individual pumps.
Manufacturing and industrial operations
must match up these factors of hydraulic pumps to be optimal for the
particular application. Determining the right pump type requires
careful and thorough communication and collaboration between the
manufacturer of the pump and the specifying engineer in charge of the
project in question.
3. Not Allowing Excessive System
Pressure Drop
Keep system pressure drop under control
to avoid energy waste. If system pressure drop is a problem in your
hydraulic pump equipment, you can reduce it if you resize piping.
Incorrectly sized piping means that energy loss occurs due to
friction between opposed ends of the piping.
Other factors that influence system
pressure drop are surface characteristics of the pipe, properties of
the hydraulic fluid, flow rate, and the diameter of the piping.
Making adjustments to these factors sometimes resolves system
pressure drop problems.
4. Using Multiple Pumps
Multiple pumps working together in
tandem are often more energy-efficient than a single pump. Consider
the implementation of a multiple pump parallel system if you're
concerned with elevated energy consumption levels in relation to your
hydraulic pumps.
Remember that individual pumps should
run separately and not concurrently in a multiple pump parallel
system to maximize energy efficiency. However, in certain situations,
running multiple pumps at the same time is optimal depending on the
flow requirements of the application in question.
5. Trimming the Impeller
You can trim the impeller pump of a
hydraulic pump to prevent the loss of energy from throttling issues
that have to do with the control valves.
Determine the extent to which you
should trim the impeller by analyzing both affinity rules and pump
curves. These factors provide insights on analyzing how successful
impeller trimming has been in optimizing energy consumption.
6. Implementing Control Valves
Control valve implementation is
essential for keeping both pressure and flow closely under control.
Control valves are helpful for preventing energy loss caused by
irrigation systems, for example.
Generally, control valves regulate
bypassing and throttling flow. Optimize energy consumption by keeping
excess pressure to a minimum through bypass of flow to a reservoir.
7. Performing Key Maintenance
Keeping up with hydraulic pump
maintenance is essential to ensure continued energy efficiency.
During maintenance procedures, technicians locate any deterioration
that detracts from efficiency.
Examples of deterioration that
unnecessarily increases energy consumption include rotor erosion and
wear ring erosion. Maintenance involves applying lubrication that
reduces friction, which is a huge cause of energy inefficiencies.
Another efficiency issue routine
maintenance takes care of is contamination problems. Routine
maintenance reduces equipment malfunctions that lead to downtime. In
addition to energy inefficiency, downtime is another costly issue for
industrial and manufacturing facilities.
If you need service for hydraulic pump
equipment, contact us at Quad
Fluid Dynamics, Inc.
, for assistance. We look forward to
speaking with you.
