Amarinth - a new rapid prototyping production technique for centrifugal pumps culminating in the production of a bespoke pump for the sulphur production industry

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Vertical and horizontal centrifugal pumps are used throughout industry and users are oftenforced to select a best fit pump for a given application from a standard range of pumps fromsuppliers. As many as 50% of pumps do not then run at their Best Efficiency Point and energyinefficiencies of 25% are common. In an ideal world the impellor and casing of a pump wouldbe designed and manufactured to each specific pump application. The pumping of liquidsulphur in the petro-chemical industry is a particularly aggressive environment requiring highreliability and robustness. Energy efficiency is now being demanded. Project has two keyobjectives, firstly the development of a design and production process to enable the mostadvanced and efficient bespoke centrifugal pumps to be designed & produced in shorter leadtimes and at less cost to end users. Secondly this technology will be applied to create aprototype centrifugal pump for application into the sulphur production market with highefficiency, high maintainability and high reliability. Amarinth will then use the design andrapid tooling techniques in many of their other pump applications and use it as a keydifferentiator from their competition and further their brand image of delivering highlyreliable pumps in short leadtimes. Main benefits are focused on the two project areas. Beingable to manufacture pumps designed to operate at their Best Efficiency Point can offer endusers10 – 25% energy savings and when 95% of pump life cycle costs are energy costs, thisrepresents a huge saving. Less energy usage means CO2 savings. Successful development ofthe sulphur pump will ensure plant runs more efficiently and reliably. If the plant experiencesan emergency shutdown & the sulphur solidifies, the pump design allows rapid reinstatement& repair which has economic and health and safety advantages. UK pump fleet energysavings of 875GWH/year could be expected with 25% market penetration. Amarinth has atarget of 5%.