February 21, 2024

Best applications for vertical turbine pumps

When moving water, there are many considerations: Are you moving clean water or are there solids or a corrosive effluent? What are the site requirements? What flow rate do you need to achieve? to name just a few. Our FieldForce team are experts at choosing the right pump for the job. We provide a wide range of centrifugal and submersible pumps for use in the municipal, oil and gas, industrial, and construction sectors. Recently, we added SIMFLO Vertical Turbine Pumps for permanent pump station applications. Here are a few of the common questions we get about these pumps.

What is a vertical turbine pump?
A vertical turbine pump is a type of centrifugal pump that carries water up a vertical shaft from deep underground sources. Discharge may be above or below ground. These pumps are ideal for clean water in high head or pressure situations.

How is a vertical turbine pump used?
Vertical turbine pumps are ideal for permanent pump stations. Common applications include municipal uses (including raw water, finished water, effluent disposal, lake or river water intake, service water, well water, reverse osmosis, and more) and industrial uses (including water parks, snowmaking, cooling towers, dewatering, mining, HVAC/chillers, corrosive water services, and other industrial processes.)

What are the benefits?
Highly efficient at moving water from deep, underground sources, these pumps provide high flow rates with low power consumption. They also are able to operate at low discharge pressures. Because they must be submerged in a deep, wet well for suction, vertical turbine pumps do not need to be primed.

What are the components of a vertical turbine pump?
These pumps have a motor to power the pump, a discharge head to direct the flow, a column and shaft assembly to channel the flow, and one or more bowl assemblies. The number of bowl assemblies, also known as stages, determines the pressure or head and the size of the bowl determines the flow rate.

How are they engineered for quality and performance?
Manufacturers like SIMFLO use advanced engineering tools to design for efficiency and dependability, including:

• 3D solid modeling
• Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis
• Stress and deflection analysis using finite element analysis (FEA)
• Lateral and torsional rotor dynamic analysis
• Structural natural frequency analysis (using FEA) and design for variable frequency drive (VFD) operation

With manufacturing facilities that meet ISO-9001 quality assurance standards and multiple testing facilities, SIMFLO pumps are designed for performance. Pumps can be tested with a maximum flow of up to 30,000 GPM and 1,000 HP electrical service.

When it comes to safe drinking water, SIMFLO’s products and facilities go through ongoing testing to verify their safety and performance. Their 4”–28” bowl assemblies have earned NSF/ANSI/CAN 61 and NSF/ANSI 372 certification from NSF International.

Expert pumping solutions
FieldForce’s experienced team can help determine the right pump for your project, provide installation and set-up, and even ongoing support, if needed. Backed by Keystone Clearwater Solutions’ extensive water management experience in the natural gas industry, the FieldForce division brings that same expertise to the municipal, industrial, and construction sectors.

Call us at 717-508-0550 or email sales@fieldforcerentals.com to learn more.