Study on custom centrifugal pump performance in supplying food based high viscos liquid

Abstract

Viscosity is one of the factors affecting the performance of the centrifugal pump. A centrifugal pump is a device that used driven motor called impeller to move fluid by rotational energy. This thesis is about the analysis of the performance of the centrifugal pump when transferring viscous liquids. For this project, the objective is to design and fabricate a device that can pump liquid with various viscosity using centrifugal pump. The liquids used in the experiment are comprised of a mixture of detergent and water with different ratio to alter the viscosity. The viscosity is being identified by the usage of Zahn Cup Method with the temperature kept constant at 26 °C throughout the experiment. The performance of the centrifugal pump is being investigated by four parameters which is the flowrate, Total Dynamic Head (TDH), power and efficiency. The performance of the centrifugal pump can be accessed by altering the pump shaft speed in order to get various reading for the flow rate. In order to alter the pump shaft speed, the usage of motor with Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) is implemented. The values for the flowrate and pump shaft power are measured by flowmeter and Variable Frequency Drive (VFD). The Total Dynamic Head (TDH), hydraulic power and pump efficiency is calculated based on the reading of the flowmeter and pump shaft power displayed at Variable Frequency Drive (VFD). At the end of this project, the pump performance while pumping different viscous liquids at different flowrates is being identified.