Pump arrangement

[Chris73]

Hi there!
Quick question: I am designing a water booster pumpstation, using multiple stage axial split centrifugal pumps (due to 500 ft head). How can I determine how close the suction pipes can be situated to each other if coming off a main suction header. Is there a rule of thumb or any fancy calculation I could/should do?

 

[bimr]

There are rules of thumb. Go to the Hydraulics Institute:

http://www.pumps.org/

They have examples of pump station layouts. Some of this information is in the back of the Goulds pump catalog.