Characteristics of Centrifugal Oil Pump

The use of centrifugal pumps on oil pipe lines and at refineries has been growing. Because they are quantity pumps and have such merits as low first cost, simplicity of operation, steady flow, and adaptability for direct connection to high-speed machinery, centrifugal pumps attract all industries which have to deal with pumping machinery. Whereas the efficiency of a properly designed centrifugal water pump runs very high, this efficiency decreases when the same pump is used in a viscous fluid. It is evident that, when pumping oil (besides all ordinary mechanical and hydraulic losses, for a viscous liquid), a new loss enters which dominates all the others. This is the viscosity or the internal resistance loss. The effect. of viscosity is to decrease the head capacity and to increase the disk friction. This lowers the efficiency of the centrifugal pump correspondingly.