Pumps: new products and rental application stories

Pioneer opens South
Africa assembly plant

Pioneer Pump opened a pump assembly facility in Johannesburg, South Africa, at the end of 2010. The plant will assemble portable pumps for the rental and mining markets in southern Africa.

The first pump from the new 500 m2 facility was delivered to rental company HEMS Engineering, based in Secunda, Mpumalunga, which rents pumps to clients including SASOL, the South African national oil company.

The Johannesburg operation will assemble pumps using US-made pump ends with locally produced bases and trailer sets. Engines are being sourced from a South African John Deere dealer. The expectation is that around 60 pumps sets will be produced in the first year of operation.

The assembly model is similar to that used by Pioneer Pumps Ltd in the UK, using pump ends manufactured by its sister company in the US, Pioneer Pump Inc. Simon Ruffles, managing director of Pioneer Pump in the UK, has led the project to open the African facility and is managing the operation.

Mr Ruffles told IRN that Pioneer had been supplying pump rental companies in Southern Africa since 2003, using pumps packaged and exported from the UK; "With a growing fleet of pumps owned by rental companies such as Bovu Pumps and HEMS Engineering, it was a natural move for Pioneer to open a facility to stock finished pumpsets, pump ends and spares for the market, much as they do in the US and UK operations".

The Johannesburg factory can build portable pumpsets in both trailer and skid designs up to 500 kW in size, with flows of over 3500 m3/hr and pumping heads of more than 200 m.

Mr Ruffles said these characteristics made them "ideal for the Southern African pump rental market where renting of pumps into the mining market is a key sector, particularly in the wet season from October to March."

He said that over the medium term Pioneer would "target specific rental markets such as the construction equipment, mining and industrial pump rental companies that operate outside of the EU and NAFTA regions."

Pioneer said its strategy was to adapt products for local markets, with locally designed packages using local suppliers and resources. "The South African factory is the second of our international operations and will be joined by others in the Middle East, Asia and South America over the coming years", said Mr Ruffles.

Godwin to integrate
ITT pump technology

Impeller designs and remote pump monitoring systems from ITT are to be integrated into Godwin's dri-prime pumps - the first technical synergies between the two since ITT acquired Godwin last year.

Per Ohstrom, Godwin Pumps' vice president of worldwide marketing and business development, told IRN that impeller designs used on some of the larger ITT submersible pumps will be adapted for use in Godwin pumps, particularly in applications where the pumps have to deal with solids.

"ITT has invested a lot of time on impeller designs, particularly for solid handling in markets like mining", says Mr Ohstrom. He said the use of the ITT impellers in Godwin's pumps will be well suited to applications such as mining and municipality work such as pipe bypassing jobs.

Likewise, ITT's expertise in using electronics to remotely monitor its submersible pumps could be adapted for use in Godwin's pumps, in particular in mining and bypass operations where pipe runs can be extremely long.

Also currently underway is investment in Godwin pumps by ITT's pump rental operations worldwide, especially outside North America. "The Godwin people are helping them build their rental fleets", says Mr Ohstrom.

"All of the investments are made at the local and regional level, and are driven by business opportunities", he says.

Mr Ohstrom says the Godwin's rental business in the US continues to improve, with revenues in the final quarter of 2010 back at ore-recession levels. He said the outlook for the rest of this year was "pretty good".

Meanwhile, in Australia, previous Godwin dealer Allight is now working with pump specialist Sykes following National Hire Group's acquisition of Sykes. Mr Ohstrom said Godwin was still working out its strategy, although he says that ITT Australia is already quite strong in rental.

ABS pumps help
at historic creek

Three ABS submersible pumps, rented from ABS distributor American Pump Company, are currently being used by Blake Drilling Co as part of a project to restore the historic beauty spot of Minnehaha Creek and Falls in Minneapolis.

The creek has long suffered from flood damage, and to repair the walls of the river the pumps are being used to completely bypass the flow. Blake is a leading dewatering contractor in the upper Midwest, and often uses ABS Pumps purchased or rented - as I this case - from American Pump Co.

Jeff Davis, ABS dewatering product manager, explains how the pumps are being used; "The creek bypass is 700 ft (213 m) at this point. Three pumps are discharged into a manifold with four 8 in HDPE discharge lines of 700 ft each. Each line is coupled every 20 ft (6 m) with Willoc Ball and Socket fittings. The pumps are also plumbed with Willoc discharge fittings.

"Because of the difficult access to the creek with steep, icy banks, the pipe was coupled in these shorter 20 ft lengths so that this could be done by hand. The use of an HDPE fusion machine would have been very cumbersome and slow on this job."

"The creek flow was estimated for this time of year at 15 cubic feet per second (CFS) which calculates to approximately 6700 gallons per minute [25.3 m3/min]."

The pumps on site comprise an ABS J604ND, which is a 94 hp (70 kW) submersible drainage pump with a 10 in discharge, pumping around 4400 gpm (16.6 m3/min); an ABS J405ND, a 55 hp (41.2 kW) submersible pump moving 2200 gpm (8.4 m3/min); and an additional 1500 gpm (5.6 m3/min) capacity ABS J205ND submersible to handle any additional flows, if required.

American Pump Company is the ABS distributor covering the entire state of Minnessotta, Eastern Dakotas, Northern Indiana and Western Wisconsin for construction, rental and mine dewatering. Rental represents around 40% of its annual business.

The Minnehaha Creek eventually feeds into the Mississippi. Minnehaha Falls gets its name from the language of the Dakota Tribe of Native Americans: ‘Minne' means water and ‘HaHa' means the falls.

Thompson launches
oil-less priming system

Thompson Pump will use ConExpo to showcase what it calls "a revolutionary priming system with OVT (oil-less vacuum technology)", working with a new Tier 4 Interim certified John Deere IT4 engine.

"OVT offers multiple improvements to the traditional vacuum priming system", says Thompson, "While both allow for a basic pump to prime automatically, the OVT does this more efficiently with lower maintenance and higher air handling for faster priming.

"In addition, the OVT system's non-contacting rotors eliminate internal wear which increases longevity and provides the reliability of no decrease in performance over time."

Thompson says the system offers lower maintenance and operating expenses because it is dry running, with no need for recirculating oil. This, in turn, eliminates the risk of smoke, mist or pollution that traditional priming systems may create.

The manufacturer says traditional vacuum priming systems require servicing every 5000 hours, while the OVT unit only requires a service every 20000 hours.

The system can be added to Thompson centrifugal pumps with the following characteristics:

• Available 4"-18" inches
• Flows up to 11000 gallons per minute (41.5 m3/min)
• Heads to 350 ft (107 m).
• Up to 4 in solids handling capability

Thompson Pump is a 40-year old family-owned company based in Port Orange, Florida. It has 20 sales, rental and service centres throughout the US and has more than 30 distributors in the US, Canada, and Latin America.

CAPTION STORY
UK pump rental specialist has used four 200 kW pumps controlled by a variable speed drive system rented from Ralspeed to help in a caisson refurbishment project at the Langton Dock in Liverpool, UK, where three million litres of water needed to be pumped out or refilled in three hours. The use of variable speed drives not only ensures smooth flow of water but also minimises the peak load on the generator, which allows a smaller genset to be used and reduces fuel consumption. Ralspeed supplied two custom-built drive systems mounted in a weatherproof enclosure. Peter Huson of Exsel Pumps says; "We installed the drives ourselves, but Ralspeed commissioned them and, during the critical pumping operations, the company even had its technical director, Simon Finlay, on site to make sure that everything went smoothly. All in all, we had excellent support and service from Ralspeed and, on the day, the drives and pumps operated flawlessly."