Head and pressure in pumps

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Home 'Head' and 'pressure' in pumps

Drinking Water

'Head' and 'pressure' in pumps

By Larry Bachus

OCTOBER 13, 2010

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Back in the mid-1960s, I was employed as an apprentice mechanic in a Birmingham, AL, steel
mill. When one of our water pumps failed in the cooling ponds one day, my boss gave me a

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requisition order and the keys to a company truck. He told me to go into the city and purchase

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another pump at the industrial supply house.

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He said, Get a water pump that pumps 30 psi [pounds per square inch] at 400 gpm [gallons
per minute]. He wrote it on the requisition.

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At the industrial supply house, the sales rep escorted me to the pump
showroom. He said,
This is the water pump you need. It generates
70 feet of head at 400 gpm. Do you need a

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coupling and motor too?

I said, Wait a minute! I dont need 70 feet of head. I want 30 psi at 400 gpm. What is 70 feet
of head? I thought the sales rep was trying to do a bait-and-switch on me. The requisition

chit clearly stated 30 psi. I wondered why the sales rep used different terms. Indignantly, I walked away and went to a
competing
industrial supply house where I repeated the same verbal exchange with their sales rep.
I know Im not alone. This misunderstanding about head and pressure occurs daily all over the country and, indeed, all
over the world.
Pump users want pressure. Pump manufacturers supply feet (or meters) of head. In the final analysis, they are the same,
just expressed from two different points of view. As someone who specifies and/or installs pumps, you need to know how
these terms relate to each other.
Origins of head, pressure

Ancient Rome and Greece were supplied with running water in giant aqueducts, which carried fresh water from mountain

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Head and pressure in pumps

lakes and streams down into the city. Underground clay pipes would carry the water by gravity to the different
neighborhoods. The water would collect in fountains for the housewives to carry away daily in clay jars. A centurion
normally guarded the fountain to prevent water theft or contamination.
That was 2,600 years ago when water flowed by gravity, the flow was dispensed in jugs and barrels, and there were no
pressure gauges or instrumentation. Still, it was generally understood that force
(rated in units of energy) was required to
elevate a quantity (volume or weight) of water against gravity. A certain amount of energy (force) was required to raise a jug
of water from the fountain up into an oxcart
or onto the housewifes head.
In Greece 2,200 years ago, Archimedes developed the first practical constant-flow pump. The Archimedes screw would

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elevate water from a river up into an irrigation canal for agriculture. The screw was used as a bilge pump on the kings
barge. It would also lift well water up to the surface for the wives to carry home and use to pour their husbands bath. (The

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topic of womens liberation requires another article.)

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Beginning with the Archimedes screw and the Egyptian noria (another pumping device), pump force was rated in units of
energy against gravity. For this reason, pumps are rated in head to express what we call pressure.
In 1643 the French inventor and mathematician Blaise Pascal, realized
that air (the atmosphere) also has weight and that its
force is applied
in all directions, not just down with gravity. So, he clarified the concept of pressure as it is used in the
physical sciences: He defined pressure as a force applied to an area, such as a pound of force applied to a square inch of
area: thus, pounds per square
inch.
A useful formula

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force in another direction such as against the interior sidewall of a pressurized

tank we would use the term pressure.

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important

In simple terms, the mathematical constant 2.31 converts a unit of energy against gravity into a unit of force against any

Important factors to consider for RO

systems

Today, modern pump companies continue to rate a liquids force as a

unit of energy against gravity. If we apply this same

other area. This

constant converts a foot of head of water into pressure: Head in feet of water divided by 2.31 equals
pressure in psi, and pressure in psi times 2.31 equals head in feet.
If the liquid is not water (examples: paint, chocolate syrup or gasoline), the liquids specific gravity must be factored into the

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EPA adds five hazardous waste sites to
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formula.
The constant 2.31 comes from the following: A square foot of area contains 144 square inches; a cubic foot of ambient-

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temperature water weighs 62.38 (62.4) pounds per cubic foot at 70 F at sea level.
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If I poured 1 pound of water into a tall, narrow vessel that occupies

1 square inch of floor space, I would fill that vessel to
2.31 feet of elevation. Now lets apply this information with some examples.
Imagine you were on a clear mountain lake taking a ride in a glass-bottomed boat. If the viewing windows were 6 feet below
the waters surface, how much pressure would be acting on the glass panes? Answer: The pressure acting against the
windows would be 2.6 pounds per square inch, or 6 feet 2.31 = 2.6 psi.
The pump rep was right

Heres another example: Most communities will have an elevated tank of ambient water that supplies water pressure to the
communities and neighborhoods below the tank. If the water in the tank is 150 feet above a kitchen faucet in one of the
homes, what is the water pressure at the faucet (assuming no other influences on pressure)? Answer: 150 2.31 = 65.8

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psi.
A standard pressure gauge would record 66 psi. There would be 66 psi of water pressure available at the kitchen faucet,
until someone opens the faucet and water flows. As the faucet is opened and water begins moving through the pipes, there
would be a slight pressure drop due to friction between the water and the pipes internal walls.
Now lets work in the other direction. If I want to buy a pump that develops 30 psi to pump water, what is my pump rating?
What pump should I buy?

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30 psi x 2.31 = 70 feet

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If you need a pump to develop 30 psi of water pressure, then buy a pump that develops 70 feet of head.
So, it turns out that back in 1965, the pump sales rep was trying to show me the correct pump for my application.

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Yongjae Lee

Differential pressure

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Allow me to refine a couple of points:

Pumps develop differential head, or differential pressure. This means
the pump takes suction pressure, adds more pressure

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(the design pressure), and generates discharge pressure. So, the discharge pressure is equal to the suction pressure plus
the pumps design pressure. The discharge pressure of the pump should be approximately equivalent to
the total dynamic

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head (TDH) required by the system (tanks, pipes, elbows, valves, flanges and fittings).

Service Technician - Milwaukee

To monitor and control your pump, your pump should have a suction pressure gauge and a discharge pressure gauge

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Head and pressure in pumps

installed on the pump. You

are concerned with the differential.
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Lets say your pump is designed to develop 40 psi. Lets say there are 3 psi of pressure in the liquid as it arrives into the

pump. The suction pressure gauge will read 3 psi. The pump is designed to add 40 psi of pressure. The discharge gauge
would read 43 psi. The differential is 40 psi.
If the pressure entering the pump is 25 psi, the discharge gauge will read 65 psi. The differential is 40 psi.

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treatment company for sale in Central
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Sick pumps to behaving ones

I work as a pump consultant. Frequently Im called to analyze a problem with a sick pump. I usually arrive to find the sick
pump has no gauges installed. Or, maybe the sick pump has only a discharge gauge. The pump operator, installer or owner

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doesnt know what the pump is doing. This is normally the source of the problem.

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Operating a pump without gauges is like driving a car without a dashboard control panel. I mean, you need a timer and a

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temperature gauge just to cook a pan of biscuits in the oven.

After we control and monitor the differential pressure across the pump, the pump calms down and behaves. The discharge
gauge is useless without the suction gauge. Remember, it is the differential pressure, or
differential head.

water

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Finally, if your system requires 50 feet of head at 600 gpm, then you
will want to purchase a pump with best efficiency

The latest

coordinates of 50 feet at 600 gpm on the pump performance curve. When reading these curves
while choosing a pump,

regulations/restrictions

there is a certain optimum zone on the pump-curve graph that you want to stay in. That zone is where the pump operates

concerning the water

most efficiently. Pump efficiency is the best combination of head and flow at the least energy consumption. Buy and use

industry

efficient pumps.

Innovative/new
technologies and products

Larry Bachus is The Pump Guy, a pump consultant, lecturer and inventor based in Nashville, TN. He is a regular

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contributor to Flow Control magazine,

published by Grand View Media Group. Hes a retired member of the
American

announcements

Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and fluent in both English and Spanish. Bachus may be reached at (615) 361-

All of the above

7295(615) 361-7295; by e-mail at: larry@bachusinc.com; or via the Web at: www.bachusinc.com.

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Shut off head

Gyanendra Kumar
NOVEMBER 7, 2012
Hi
How do you thnk shut off head affect the pump discharge pressure.
Lets say I have a pump with inlet pressure at bar and a

differential head at 3 bar.My shut off head is 4 bar. What discharge pressure will I get? 5 bar or 4 bar
Thanks in advance
Gyan
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combined feet head of water Thompson engineering pipe co .ltd

sue Clayton
MARCH 11, 2014

Can u please tell me the age of this

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