DESIGN OF PUMPING INSTALLATIONS: DEVELOPMENT OF AN EXCEL WORKBOOK FOR HYDRAULIC MACHINES LECTURES

Abstract

Nowadays, pumps are used worldwide in a very wide range of facilities and for countless purposes, including HVAC, domestic and commercial buildings, district energy, industrial processes and water treatment, municipal wastewater and water supply, agriculture and irrigation, among others. Accordingly, the number of applications is also very diverse. The purpose of present contribution is to introduce an Excel Workbook that represents a friendly easy to use tool that enables the design of pumping systems. It was first thought for Hydraulic Machines Master lectures, but its use might be looked at in a wider perspective. The Workbook includes 17 worksheets (Figure 1), all linked to each other, addressing different aspects of the design. Special attention is paid to the major and minor head losses calculation, the cavitation phenomenon, the use of dimensionless coefficients to determine the rotation speed to obtain a specific operating point and to the calculation of the system curve. Energy efficiency represents today an important goal in every pumping facility; therefore, one of the objectives of this tool is to enable the user to quantify both the shaft power and the efficiency of different operating points thus allowing a sustained definition of the best solution.