Flow Control, piping arrangements booster pump to 2 separate systems.

[elquesifilma]

Hello All,
I need some help for my pump system. I have 1 tank which supplies water to a header where i am installing booster pumps to boost the pressure of the water to 300 psi ~300MBWPD, this water goes to two separate stations where each station has 5 injection pumps which one can inject 200MBWPD and the other 100MBWPD.

How do i design the piping, should it be a header that divides up going to each station?

Basically i am concerned about how to control the flow to each station, and if i should have individual or same booster pumps

 

[dcasto]

the pumps at each station will control the flow based on how the water is consumed downstream of the booster pumps.

You need to explain the "same or indiviual booster pumps". I'll guess that want to know if ther should be dedicated booster pumps to each distant injection station. I won't give you answer, but I'll try to lead you in the right direction.

Think about what if: What if one station goes down or is abandoned. What if it is expanded. Will it alsways be split 33%/66%? Do you really know the exact volume. Do you need flexibility? Do you want 2 custom pumps or will 3 standard pumps be better? Do you need spare capacity for maintenance.....

Think about the future when you design. Things like all the same pumps, spare, growth, turndown....

Now, your next post should be, I will install this, do you have any recommendations on this plan....

 

[BigInch]

Difficult to answer without seeing the whole arrangement and pipeline profiles, but I feel certain you should use separate pump groups going to each downstream station. Maybe you could feed both pump groups from a common suction header, but I'd forget about a common discharge header until you've proven its true usefullness in terms of efficiency, operating flexibility and adaptability for future use.

In fact, without knowing the profiles, it could always be a total waste of power on one pipeline while the other needs more. You have a lot of difference in demands at both stations and even an equal percentage change in demand of 25% would mean 25 MB on one and 50 MB, if they went + on one and - on the other, your previously nicely balanced hydraulics just went to s***, while you need to increase pressure to one line and reduce to the other.

You will also have much more control of the energy needed for each pipeline if you can control the motive power separately for each pipeline. I can easily imagine that there will be pleanty of situations simiar to the above where you would want to be trimming down power on one pipeline while increasing power on the other and totally separate systems will give you much more flexibility in trimming the power required at any given time to exactly the right levels. Much easier to save energy dollars if you are using taylored VSD settings to each rather than pumping to the high pressure demand, while burning off excess with a partially closed control valve to the other.

I don't think you can really decide to combine the discharge header unless you've thought about and simulated steady states and dynamic transients of all the present and future operating scenarios you think you might have, including possible modifications mentioned above. I feel transient control if nothing else, would be much better served with the best individual control possibilities. A common header just doesn't add up (at lest for present consideration) IMO.

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com

"What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know, its what we know for sure" - Mark Twain

 

[BigInch]

If you really want a "common header", include a valve in there so you can isolate each pump-pipeline system and run them in total independence.

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com

"What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know, its what we know for sure" - Mark Twain

 

[elquesifilma]

wow, thank you all for your excellent responses. I will be more specific next time. I am thinking on having a common discharge header with a valve to isolate the two systems, as described by BigInch. This should give me flexibility, if anything changes in the future, its basically 2 systems i am boosting up, with the same type of booster pumps, so i can have 1 spare. I am thinking about a VSD to control the flow.

Thanks again to all!