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Kerosene (Jet) vaporising

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irishal

Industrial
Mar 8, 2005
39
Hi,
We have a problem on our site where we are pumping Jet aviation fuel from underground tanks into a pipeline. Over a short period of time the pump performance drops significantly until eventually is loses all discharge pressure. The pump, a vertical can pump, then needs to be vented and is always found full of gas. The suction pipe configuration from the tanks involves the Jet being taken out of the bottom of the tank and up above ground level (hence above liquid head level) before running downhill to the pump which is approximately 2m below the tank base. There is definately enough product in the tank. There is a 'babbling stream' noise from the pipework during the onset of the problem. We have checked calculations, etc, and the pumps are definately not cavitating.

Any ideas? Could the jet be vaporising in the pipeline?
 
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What grade of jet fuel are you producing? If you are producing a kerosene type jet fuel, I can't see you having any vapor at typical storage temperatures.

Could you be leaking air into the piping and pump when it's not in service and essentially losing the prime for your pipe? Have you taken a check of the 'gas' to see what it is?
 
With your inlet pipe configuration you may have created what is called a siphon. There are formulas in Marks Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers under mechanics of fluids (and other books on fluid dynamics), which gives the max elevation that you can have before you get vapor pressure.
 
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