A Swiss airport was having difficulties with their water treatment facility - luckily Verderflex came to the rescue with a fantastic solution.
The problem:
A Swiss airport was experiencing difficulty with its water treatment facility. The local water supply required softening to prevent scaling in the airport pipework. Mag drive pumps were being used to dose a salt solution from a storage tank into the water supply. In this instance, the salt solution had to be transported through more than 350m of piping to the water supply. This 350m run of piping, containing many valves and poorly installed components, contained a substantial amount of air, that couldn’t be removed. This had the unfortunate consequence of causing the intermittently used mag drive pumps to run dry, leading to increased bearing failure. Bearing failure was extreme, to the extent that the pumps had to be replaced every 3 months. The challenge was to reduce the downtime and high maintenance costs due to the frequent pump replacement.
One option would be to replace the faulty pipework, but ongoing construction and fixed layout precluded this option. Instead a more robust pumping solution was sought, one that would accurately dose the salt solution and cope with the air in the pipework.
The solution:
The recommendation was made to switch from mag drive pumps, which are susceptible to running dry, to peristaltic hose pumps, which are immune to running dry. The Dura35 from leading brand Verderflex was chosen as the best replacement for the magnetic drive pumps.
Peristaltic hose pumps are positive displacement pumps where a turning rotor displaces the fluid contained within a hose as it rotates. Peristaltic pumps can tolerate air in the pipes, as the hose is the only component of the pump in contact with the fluid. The DuraFlex 35 size was chosen to allow the pumps to run slowly, increasing hose life. Estimations placed the running time of the pump at roughly 1200 hours per year, allowing one year between hose changes.
This allowed the maintenance downtime to be reduced by a factor of four and an annual hose replacement without replacing the mag drive pump every 3 months resulted in substantial cost savings.
If you have an issue with your water treatment facility, talk to the team at Global Pumps. We stock a range of Verderflex products, as well as many other leading brands within the industry.
