Pump Cavitation: An Underrated

Warrior
May 21, 2016 By Sumit Asrani 0 Comments

Monday morning. At sharp 9o clock.

A young, enthusiastic graduate chemical engineer enters
through a door of a manufacturing company. He does
make sure to log in on time attendance machine at the regular
office hours.
Wishes Greetings of the day to everyone.
His senior asked him to check and go through yesterdays
production rate.
Moreover, then to make a report of all the production rate,
process parameters, lab reports, and so forth.
He gets engaged with the work. As time passes by, he gets
more busy with the work schedule. To him, planning and
scheduling for the day seemed daunting but nevertheless, gets
engaged with operators, communicates about the plan of the
day.
He makes sure everything is in place and on time, running
smoothly.
It went on until afternoon. Also, after the lunch break, he sends
his reliever for the meal. His senior is on lunch break too.

Everything was running smoothly when all of a sudden he hears

a sound.
The sound was something similar to that of a crushing of marble
or maybe something akin to that of nuts and bolts shook
together. He could not recognize accurately.
He tried to think what must have happened. However, he failed
miserably in his attempt to understand.
He went to the location where the erratic noise was at its peak.
An operator with the help of commissioning engineer was trying
to start the pump. Only to find that it is not starting and instead
is in a problematic situation. This young and enthusiastic
engineer curious enough to know more asked about the
problem, and that landed up him with an answer that the pump
is facing cavitation problem.
(Heres the video I found on youtube to help you to understand
how it sounds when pump cavitates.)
Is it? Pump Cavitation! He reckoned.
The only thing he had read about pump cavitation was it
damages a pump and should be avoided.
Moreover, of course, it is an important question for the exam, so
he had read about pump cavitation.
Nothing else.

Soon the problem was solved with an easy tweak done by the
commissioning engineer. In the evening, they both went for a
cup of tea. Over a cup of tea, the commissioning engineer
explained to the young, enthusiastic engineer everything that he
could teach about the pump cavitation and troubleshooting on
that evening.
Bold and Italic are the questions raised by the junior engineer
and the answers by the commissioning engineer are in regular
typeface or simply Bold.
Dont be careless when it comes to

Pump Cavitation
Note: This is the 2nd post in the series of
Bootcamp for Chemical Engineers.
(Read Part I, and Part III)
Part II

Pump Cavitation: An underrated warrior

What is Pump Cavitation?
Or
What does it mean when a pump is facing
cavitation problem?

When the pressure of the suction line drops such that it is lesser
than the vapor pressure of the fluid flowing inside the suction
line, that causes to form vapor bubbles, which in turn collapses
at the eye of the impeller results into cavitation.
(Besides them, another person was drinking a soda water from
a bottle. He saw him and added)
To give you a simple example, the gas in the container is
pressurized, and hence, nothing happens until it remains
closed, but the moment you open the cap of a bottle what
happens?
The bottle is suddenly open to the atmospheric pressure
consequentially you observe that the entrained carbon dioxide
starts releasing, this is because the atmospheric pressure is
less than that of vapor pressure.

Why does the pump cavitation happen in the

first place?
If the pressure in the suction line of the pump is less than the
vapor pressure of the fluid, it results in the formation of bubbles
and collapsing of those bubbles at the eye of the impeller and
that is termed as cavitation.
The pressure in the suction line can drop due to serval reasons.

The suction line has too many turns and bends (avoid that,
talk to layout and piping engineers)
Plugged strainer or filter in the suction line (ensure the line
is clean, maintenance is necessary)

Rusted Pipe results in friction losses (keep an eye on those

and change if necessary)
Low level in the suction vessel (make sure that it operates
at operating set point or close to it)
Damaged fittings over a period and so forth

What about NPSH?

Net Positive Suction Head? I will explain it to you in a minute.
Now, listen to me, this is important, the units of NPSH are
the meter of liquid head.
There are two terms one is called NPSH R and the other NPSH
A.
R stands for required, it is given by the manufacturer and is
determined based on the experimental data.
A is for available and is calculated and cross verified by smart
engineers like you.
But why do we need this data? For obvious reasons as to avoid
the cavitation by making sure that at a given flow rate with a
particular impeller dia size, your NPSH A is greater than the
NPSH R.

For every flow capacity, theres a different NPSH R, and it

increases with a square of a capacity.
Pump manufacturers make sure that for each flow capacity,
theres an NPSH, which is found experimentally.

Flow capacity is an independent variable when plotted flow,

head, efficiency, and NPSH. This NPSH that is found is
called NPSH R.
The pump manufacturer set up a system where the fluid,
water, is passed through the system.
The flow rate and speed are kept constant while the
pressure of the suction line is reduced (as shown in the
video above).
As the pressure is keep reducing there will be a point when
the pressure in the suction line reduces to vapor pressure
and ultimately lower than that of vapor pressure. This
pressure, meter of liquid head, is called NPSH R.

1. As the flow capacity is increased, head reduces, and the

NPSH R increases.
2. There are other factors also like, impeller size, at a given
flow rate the NPSH R increases with the decrease in the dia
of an impeller.
3. The curve that is developed is somewhat in a U shape;
that implies that its minimum at the mid-range capacity
flow.
Sir, tea.
Yes.
Let us see what happened today:

The tank was at 6 m above the pump suction nozzle. The

pressure inside the tank was 10 psi g, and the liquid in the tank
was at bubble point.
Specific gravity 0.58 ; Density of the fluid = 1000 kg/m3 x 0.58 =
580 kg/m3,

implies P = gh = 5 psi g and hence, the pressure measured at

the suction line was 15 psi g. The total pressure of (15 psi g +
14.7 psi a) 29.7 psi a.
The vapor pressure of the fluid = The total pressure in absolute
= 24.7 psi a (10 psi g + 14.7 psi a)
Now lets calculate the NPSH available (NPSH A) =
Total pressure at the suction Vapor pressure of the liquid
Pressure drop across the suction line
If for the time being you neglect the pressure drop across the
line and fittings the resultant would be:
29.7 24.7 = 5.0 psi a
So far you havent minus the pressure drop that is inside the
line and fittings.
If you convert this 5 psi a, into meter liquid head it would be
near about 6 m.
Additionally, you havent deducted the pressure drop across the
suction line, but if you do it will result in NPSH A as 5 m or
lesser than that.
Okay, I see the problem, there, NPSH A was less than that
of NPSH R.
Yes. But theres something more. Theres a twist.

The problem was that calculated NPSH available (NPSH A)

was 5 psi a without the pressure drop in the suction line. That
means you need additional head to avoid cavitation.
But one thing that nobody told you about pump cavitation
and perhaps no one will ever, Starting NPSH.
Starting NPSH?

Yes, the NPSH R that we are talking about is called running

NPSH, something like running torque and starting NPSH as
starting torque.
That means you need additional NPSH to start the pump than
that of required for running pump. That means, todays case,

The NPSH R for 5 m3/hr was 6 m

The NPSH A that we calculated without friction loss was 6
m

Moreover, you need additional head, when you are starting

the pump, called starting NPSH

So the actual value of NPSH A, which we just calculated, was

not sufficient enough to the addition of
1. running NPSH,
2. the frictional loss in the line,
3. starting NPSH.
How did you resolve pump cavitation issue?
You have to identify the issue due to which the cavitation is
occurring. Additionally, one must distinguish the difference
between issues like recirculation, air entrainment, and
cavitation.
When you know the real problem, you can solve it.
The objective was to increase the NPSH or say, the net
pressure in the suction line, so that the formation of bubbles can
be avoided or look at this way, to reduce the temperature from
the bubble point to a subcooled temperature, and then you win.
1. The problem could have been solved by increasing the
pressure in the suction line by raising the liquid level in the
tank, but it wouldnt have solved the issue for us as the
level was already above the operating point.
2. Partly closing the back pressure control valve wouldnt have
helped as either, as it would increase the pressure in
a drum, that implies more lighter component in the suction
line, consequentially, increasing the vapor pressure of the
suction line; resultant net zero increase in NPSH A.

Then how did you solved the issue of pump cavitation?

You ask me not. Due to the starting NPSH, the total
requirement of NPSH was slightly more than the usual NPSH A.
Once the pump starts running, this additional requirement of
NPSH would not be a problem.

I reduced the temperature of the suction line by tearing off

the insulation of the suction line, which reduced the
temperature below the bubble point to a subcooled level,
luckily, mind it, it was anyway an input to a cooler at the
discharge of the pump.
Additionally, you must know that the more quickly the
operator opens the discharge line; the more will be this
starting NPSH, and so asked the operator to open
discharge valve slowly as that helped in keeping starting
NPSH as minimum as possible.

How to identify if your pump is facing

cavitation?
If the pump is facing cavitation problem, you will hear an
unusual noise similar to that you heard today; you will also
notice low pump output.
However, it could be air entrainment or recirculation instead of
NPSH that causes the same damages to an impeller as it would
in the case of loss of suction head.

How to differentiate between pump cavitation

and other issues?

Great Question!
Great Engineers Ask Great Questions.
The difference is where the damage occurs on the impeller.
If its too severe case, pitting damage impellers. Let it not be the
case, but if that is the case then check where the pitting on the
impeller has happened.
Moreover, I asked the operator to throttle the discharge valve,
that reduced the flow, and the noise got quiet. If had been the
case of recirculation or air entrainment this wouldnt have
happened, the noise getting quiet.

Great Engineers Ask Great Questions.

CLICK TO TWEET

What will happen if you see pump cavitation as an

underrated warrior?
A good engineer will never let you down, man!
A Pump is a Heart of any plant and of course, your Heart is
the closest pump to you.
Imagine, if your Heart stops, what will happen to you? Now
imagine, if a pump stops?
That is why a running pump always has a standby pump!

Moreover, if something goes wrong, or if taken for granted

anything can happen.
For instance, if this was a running pump supplying a cooling
water from the cooling tower to a reactor, specifically where an
exothermic reaction is taking place. And if the pump had
stopped for some reason, let say because of some blockage or
plugged strainer, thereby causing cavitation and low pump
output, by the time your interlocks work or control valve take
actions, this could have become next runaway plant case.
Sir, you forgot to have tea, please.
Yes, thanks.
How to defeat before pump cavitation becomes a
champion?
Lets keep something for our next tea meet up.
Know more about:
1. The importance of Bernoullis Equation.
2. Hydraulic hammer or water hammering.
3. Pump Cavitation, Air entrainment, Recirculation and How to
avoid.
4. The importance of Pump curves, BEP, Shutoff Head, Pump
runout.
5. Calculation of NPSH Available, Pump Power, Pump
P&ID,etc
Attend 2-day workshop on P&ID on 11-12th June16 at
Pune, India Click to know full detail

Stay Tuned.
Sumit Asrani
P.S. The above-mentioned case study, calculations, and the
troubleshooting is an example taken from A Working Guide To
Process Equipment by Norman Lieberman.