New Orleans Pumps 2

[unclesyd]

I caught the tail end of an interview where it was mentioned that the electric motors that run the drainage pumps are 50 cycle and they have to have a special power plant up and running. I have a lot of information on the drainage system but no mention of the type motors except that the last pump installed had a synchronous motor.
I was just wandering if this true.

This is curious as my home near coal and ore mines and steel mills had a lot of 50 cycle equipment. In fact the company towns around the mines and mills had 50 cycle power, free, so everything electrical had to came from the company store.

 

[jgoodburn]

jraef (Electrical) 1 Sep 05 0:26 wrote:
>There are a lot of pumps all over the area. Electric motor
>driven for the most part, but there are a few diesel and
>natural gas. But even those are not going to work
>submerged.

>I read some great stuff on the pump systems in the past
>because we bid on some of the upgrade work, but all of the
>links I kept were from Tulane or Loyola Universities, and
>sadly right now none of them are working. I fear that much
>has been lost.

Just a thought, try plugging your URL's for the off-line sites into Google, and choosing the "CACHED" option. Google keeps a snapshot of each site it indexes, so that if the site disappears, you can usually view it at the point Google last indexed it.

God bless New Orleans and America, I hope you folks get back to leading 'normal' lives again soon. I wish I could say something more, but I am at a loss for words.

Jason Goodburn
Toronto, Canada
jgoodburn(at) hotmail.com

 

[unclesyd]

Just heard on the news that 3 pumping stations are on line and they had tried to go with #6 the big one, but it had dropped out. One of the problems with #6 station that has to be watched is it used the 17th street canal, which isn't in the best of shape.
I have seen two of the Hydraflow pumps working.
One thing that doesn't jive is that with the original inundated acreage they have drawn the water down 2". As the acreage is decreased the process should go much faster.
Just hope they don't slow the process down to match their predictions.

On a lighter note:
One of the reporters was on the air and swatting bugs and stated “They are really going to have to get after the mosquitos”. For anyone that has ever been along the Gulf Coast this time of year would recognize the bugs he was chopping at were our beloved “Love Bugs”.

 

[itsmoked]

"TV" (ugh), reported that the water dropped quickly because a levee/s were deliberately breached. This because water was higher in town than in the drainage area. This rapidly dropped the water to the drainage depth. Now the deliberate breaches are repaired and all the rest must be pumped. Hence slower.

Of course slower may also be because it's hard to pump lounge chairs and tires.

 

[jraef]

I'm happy some of the pumps are running, but I can't get my head around what must be going through them. Not just lounge chairs and tires, but also every chemical stored or spilled in that area, body parts, human waste, dead animals, every concevable hunk of trash known to mankind. All of it eventually making it's way out to the Gulf, which was already in trouble. I know we have to do this quickly for the trapped people, but the environmental consequences are going to be horriffic too. What a shame.

 

[itsmoked]

Indeed! And if they wait too long for action I can see the standard.. But wait! You have to build a floodwater treatment plant before you can pump!

 

[SlideRuleEra]

unclesyd - There do seem to be some odd things happening regarding pumping. I downloaded the Hydraflow pump data from the link you furnished. The largest of the Mobile Hydraflow pumps is 3' diameter and rated at 45,000 GPM (100 CFS). To me, this looks like the pump being shown over & over on TV. The reported capacity of Pump Station #6 alone is 10,000 CFS. It would take "forever" for the few portable pumps to put a dent in the flood.

I assume that the Hydraflow pumps are being use for some "small scale" dewatering - maybe to get access to necessary flooded equipment or, alternatively, it makes a very visible public relations photo op.

jraef - There is an environmental consequences discussion here Thread194-133468

http://www.SlideRuleEra.net

 

[electricpete]

10,000 cfs would be 5,000,000 gpm?

That's one monster pump!

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[SlideRuleEra]

electricpete - It must be a big pump staion, has two each, 12' dia. and 4 each 14' dia Wood screw pumps, along with assorted newer additions. See Chapter 4c here

http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/pao/history/NO_Drainage/NewOrleansDrainage.htm

Rather than adding all of them up, got the total station capacity here

http://www.mvd.usace.army.mil/hurricane/docs/QAs on unwatering New Orleans.pdf

http://www.SlideRuleEra.net

 

[unclesyd]

The big pump at #6 is now pumping 1,000,000 GPM or 133680.6 ft³/min.


As for the stuff going into the Gulf I don't think it can compare to material that once came down the river in normal flow not too many years age. The Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain at one time were sewers. There have been numerous barge leaks that killed tremendous numbers of fish and wildlife that weren't mad public.
Having fished the Gulf for many years (60 +) and seen houses, with chickens on the roof, 50 miles East of the river during floods I don't think this will have that much effect on things as whole. Like someone has posted nature puts a lot natural oil continuously in the water. Prior to drilling East of the river there were literally thousands of oil and gas seeps and light oil slicks along the 37 ridge that runs 100 miles to the east.
The biggest effect will be on the local fishery, like the oyster, shrimp, and crab. They will have time to recover as not too many boats survived.

It looks like a tremendous number of trees have died and NO or any city without the oaks is sad.

 

[rmw]

I graduated from college and reported to my first job in NO. This was pre-EPA, pre-PC, pre-OSHA, pre anything like what we have now. The town where I lived (Kenner) took their drinking water from the river, and I stll remember the taste and smell of that water. UG!!! I wonder now what kind of carcinogins that I ingested at that time.

The river then was nasty. Everyone dumped everyting with no restraints into it.

So, while I wouldn't recommend it as a regular thing, I think the river and the lake and the Gulf will survive this upset.

rmw

 

[itsmoked]

Wow.. Long live Reverse Osmosis!

 

[unclesyd]

As of 5:30 on 09-08-05 the pumping rate was approximately 9,000 cfs, 4,039,480.5 gallon (US)/min.
Not all the big pumps are on.

There was a news item this morning that there is an ongoing oil spill at the Bass oil facilities. They didn’t state the location but indicated its was at or near Port Fourchon.

 

[electricpete]

We have pumps (power plant circ water pumps) that are approx 250,000 gpm and they are provided with 8 foot pipe. Where the output of two pumps merge (500,000gpm), the pipe size increases to 11.25'. For double the flow rate (500,000/250,000) we have roughly double the area (Pi*11.25/2)^2 / (Pi*8/2)^2 ~ 2

But that doesn't scale up to 5,000,000 gpm at 14'. At 14' it would scale up to around 725,000 gpm.

So if a 5,000,000 gpm were associated with a 14' pipe I would think the velocities would be far higher than what we have. Velocity would be [10,000 ft^3/sec] / 154 ft^3 ~ 70 ft/sec I think this is outside the bounds of normal velocities but I'm not sure.

Can anyone clarify? Is 10,000 ft^3/sec in a 14' pipe incorrect?

(I'm not trying to be picky... just trying to find the right data)


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[electricpete]

OK - there was an error in treatment of Pi but it cancels out and doesn't affect the results - you know what I meant anyway

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[electricpete]

and 154 was ft^2 representing area of 14' pipe. typo's abound. #%*&#

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[Laplacian]

electricpete,

Pump Station # 6 consists of the following per one of the links:

The pumping equipment at Station No. 6 consists of
two 12' Wood screw pumps rated at 550 cfs, installed in 1916; four 14' Wood screw pumps rated
at 1,000 cfs, installed in 1930; three Worthington 14' screw pumps, one rated at 1,000 cfs and two
rated at 1,050 cfs, installed 1986-1989; four vertical centrifugal constant pumps rated at 250 cfs,
installed 1985-1988; and two vertical centrifugal constant duty pumps rated at 90 cfs, installed ca.
1930. The Worthington screw pumps are later variations of the basic Wood screw pump design
and operate in a similar fashion. The six Wood screw pumps are the most significant engineering
objects at the station. Associated with the Wood pumps are auxiliary equipment such as vacuum
pumps for priming the main pumps, switchgear for starting and operating them, and other minor
features. As is the case at Station No. 1, the Wood screw pumps at Station No. 6 operate on 25
cycle electric current, which is generated by a central generating station. In an emergency, a
frequency converter station connected to Entergy generators can be utilized for current supply.
The pumps at this station installed during the 1980s have more modern 60 cycle current supply.

 

[BJC]

Speaking of pumps but not electric ones. There are three pumps on the western side of the Great Salt Lake that pump water out of the lake into the desert to evaporate. The pumps are natural gas powered reciprocating engines ( Cat 3416s) that pumps were Archimedes screws and moved about 1.4 million gallons min. The head was low and they probalby had a sipon effect that helped ease the work. There was an artical in ENR on the station.

 

[electricpete]

Aha!. I was thinking one pump in a pumping station. My bad. Thx.

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[unclesyd]

Here is the update put out by the COE and like the posts by SlideRuleEra has some good information

http://www.mvd.usace.army.mil/hurricane/chr.php

 

[crossthread]

itsmoked,
Re: post 4 Sep 05 15:12
New Orleans, NOAA sat photos -
"What's with all these cars?"
My being a simi-pro dumpster diver/junkyard fan enabled me to immediately recognize that part of the photo as being an automotive junkyard.
(High and dry - Ironicle, huh?)