Viscous Fluids

The performance of centrifugal pumps is affected when pumping viscous liquids. A dramatic increase in Brake Horsepower and a reduction of Flow and Head occurs.

To determine the affects of pumping viscous fluids using a centrifugal pump use the Performance Correction Chart below:

CH = Head Correction

CQ = Flow Correction

CE = Efficiency Correction

correction1.gif (45393 bytes)

EXAMPLE

To determine the affects of pumping a 1,000 SSU viscous hydrocarbon liquid with a specific gravity of 0.9 using a pump with known water performance characteristics we find that:

CALCULATIONS
WATER CAPACITY(GPM) WATER HEAD (FT) WATER EFFICIENCY HORSEPOWER(BHPR)	450 114 72.5% 16.1	600 108 80% 18.4	750 100 82% 20.8	900 86 79.5% 22.1
SPECIFIC GRAVITY	.90	.90	.90	.90
VISCOSITY	1,000SSU	1,000SSU	1,000SSU	1,000SSU
CQ (FLOW CORRECTION) CH (HEAD CORRECTION) CE( EFFICIENCY CORRECTION)	0.95 0.96 0.635	0.95 0.94 0.635	0.95 0.92 0.635	0.95 0.89 0.635
VISCOUS CAPACITY(GPM) VISCOUS HEAD(FT) VISCOUS EFFICIENCY VISCOUS HORSEPOWER	427 109.5 46% 23.1	570 101.5 50.8% 25.9	712 92 52.1% 28.6	855 76.5 50.5% 29.4

These calculations can be plotted on a performance curve as follows:

PERFORMANCE CURVE

Correction Performance Chart.gif (18414 bytes)