Pumps in Parallel 2

[impeller1]

Good day,

My Boss threw an idea at me which while sounds correct in theory, I'm not sure how accurate it is practically. We have 6 vertical pumps in parallel and there's a discharge gauge on each. We have no individual flowmeters, just a total flow of all 6 pumps from the header. My boss was suggesting to check the power required by the pump and use this value on the power curve to obtain a flow value and then plot this on the performance curve with the pressure value from the gauge. Is using the power to obtain a flow value accurate?

Thanks

 

[dabluffrat]

Artisi,

And if all pumps are identical and have a good head rise to shut off, then they'd be approx the same flows for that given pressure.

Did you know that 76.4% of all statistics are made up...

 

[relentlessratt]

the answer is in your pump curve, power curve etc.
have a good look at the shape of the curves and you should be able to tell if measuring the power can help you identify the weakest pump. This is usually difficult and can be inaccurate since pumps discharging on a common header influence each others operating point.
the most accurate method would be to use an ultrasonic flow meter; provided you have a good straight run of piping on the discharge of each pump.