Understanding small typical pump systems

Jacques Chaurette Jan 1, 2019

Purpose

The purpose of this discussion is to familiarize ourselves with common pumping situations. How to size a
pump, size pipes and establish the flow demand. Something like a statuary fountain, pond water
circulation or a small cottage water supply from an artesian well or lake. The pumps for these systems
are mostly available at your local hardware store if the flow demand is not too high. Since fluid behavior
is so fascinating, we will also look at the unusual behaviour of liquids as compared to solids.

This document is intended to provide background on how pump systems work and calculations are
performed. It is not a guide on how to use the software.

Understanding fluid systems

The movement of fluids is difficult to understand because it’s not part of our everyday experience, at
least not in a way that is obvious to us. In the modern world we have water available at the turn of a tap
but it wasn’t always so. You can argue that our modern infra-structure of water supply and waste
management allowed the development of great civilizations.

The Romans starting in 312 BC, were early innovators in massive water supply projects. They realized
that fresh water was a prerequisite for building a massive city with a large population. They had
mastered the building of arches and used that technology of building structures to support aqueducts
that could span valleys. The aqueduct needed to slope downward at a very small slope over long
distances therefore no variations from a straight line were allowed.

Here is a beautiful section of aqueduct in Pont de Garde, France

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The picture is from the web site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_aqueduct; “The multiple arches of
the Pont du Gard in Roman Gaul (modern-day southern France). The upper tier encloses an aqueduct
that carried water to Nimes in Roman times; its lower tier was expanded in the 1740s to carry a wide
road across the river.”

The building material was a type of concrete, more exactly cement with some hard aggregate such as
broken pieces of clay pottery. This cement was very strong and versatile.

The top tier is where an open channel is located and slopes downward very gradually, less than1%; this
channel holds the water that moves by gravity over long distances. In fact, the above aqueduct had a
slope of 10 m over a distance of 16.4 km. In some cases, the gradient was a modest 3 ft in 1000 ft (ref.
Roman Empire by Nigel Rogers, Metro Books 2013). The channel was covered to prevent evaporation
and regularly maintained as the surface could be worn down over the years gradually impeding flow.

The 30,00 feet view looks like this:

The arches are required to span the valleys and ensure that the water channel can maintain a constant
slope.

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The Romans but impressive sewage lines that were mainly used to drain low
lying areas in the city. Citizens in private homes were reluctant to connect their
toilets to the main sewer as there were no traps or impediments for small
creatures crawling up the drain pipe. And also the pipes used were made of clay
and were very susceptible to leakage over time causing bad odour.

See this web site: https://phys.org/news/2015-11-toilets-sewers-ancient-roman-

sanitation.html

Or this file if the above site has disappeared:

http://www.pumpfundamentals.com/What toilets and sewers tell us about
ancient Roman sanitation.pdf

We move objects and things around everyday and never think twice about it. We know approximately
how heavy the object is. How do we measure weight, we can use a scale, or perhaps the weight is
conveniently written on the packaging of the object. If we have to raise it to a certain height, we know
that it takes energy and we have an intuitive idea of what that means. It’s work! The higher we have to
lift, the more work it takes and a heavier object requires more work. We can measure weight directly
with a scale and also distance with a tape measure. But work or energy is a calculation or combination of
force (i.e. effort) and distance. By the way, work and energy mean the same thing, traditionally work has
been used to express the amount of force required to execute some task. Energy is used in a more
general fashion for example stroking a pump to inflate a bicycle tire is the
amount of work or energy needed to pressurize the tire. Once the tire is
pressurized, you can use it as a source of energy to drive something else such
as blowing up a balloon or driving a pneumatic drill, it is then referred to as
energy.

The definition of work is force x distance (F x d). The units of force in the
Imperial system are pounds, abbreviated as lbf for pound force; in the metric
system the force unit is a Newton. Distance is measured in inches or feet,
abbreviated respectively in and ft; and in the metric system millimeter (mm) or
meters (m). I’m going to use Imperial units mostly. If we want to know how
much work is required to lift a 50 lbfs weight vertically up 6 ft, we simply
multiply them and get 6 ft x 50 lbf = 300 ft-lbf of work. Sounds like allot, and it is
for the human body, we all know that from working out in the gym.

In the metric system the work unit is watt-h, or watt-hours. If you have ever been to a science museum,
they sometimes have a bicycle hooked up to a generator that produces electricity to power a 60-watt
lightbulb, it’s hard work to keep that bulb glowing.

You move an object by applying a force, but what about moving liquids? Can you apply a force to a liquid
such as water? No. Water will just slip through your fingers; but you can apply pressure.

In the world of liquids pressure is the equivalent of force. What is pressure? We have an intuitive
understanding, we feel pressure on our ear drums when we dive to the bottom of a pool; we feel the
same thing in an airplane when we get up to altitude and the air pressure drops inside the plane.

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What does pressure look like? Say we have a tube filed with water and a thin membrane such as Saran
wrap sealing the low end. It’s easy to imagine that the wrap will bulge out due to the force exerted by
the weight of the water. This weight is distributed across the surface of the membrane, and this is what
we call pressure.

There is a wonderful and simple relationship between the pressure at the bottom of a container and the
height of the liquid column

p(psi) = h(ft) / 2.31

The simplest fluid system we can imagine is a tube connected to a tank full of water. We can determine
the pressure by using the height to pressure formula: p(psi) = h(ft)/2.31. If the height is 10 feet then the
pressure is 4.3 psi.

The pressure at the inlet of the pipe is what drives the liquid; this pressure is produced by the height of
water above the pipe connection. The higher the water level the more pressure will be produced and
the faster the water will exit from the pipe. In this system there is no pump, we don’t need one, all the
work is done by having the liquid available at a height and that height is known as head, a term that is
used a lot in pump systems.

We started by saying that fluids cannot be moved by a force but can be moved by pressure. In this
system we see that pressure can be produced by a body of water at a height. The work produced to
create pressure comes from the elevation of the liquid. This is how a damn works; an elevated reservoir
provides water to a turbine located far below the water level.

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This work or energy that the body of water produces is called potential energy, and in the pump system
world it is referred to as static head. Head is a term that is frequently used in describing pump systems
as opposed to pressure which is seldom used. The reason is that head, because it is a form of work or
energy can be added and subtracted whereas pressure cannot.

This is what is meant by head is a form of energy; the precise term for head is specific energy. Because
head is a form of energy it can be added or subtracted from another head term within the system. For
example:

In a typical pump system, we have a suction and a discharge tank. The suction static head is the amount
of head supplied to the pump. The discharge static head is the amount of head required at the discharge
of the pump. The pump has to supply the difference between these two. Therefore, the pump head is
the discharge head minus the suction head, and this is known as the total static head. This is how easy it
is to calculate the pump head.

Of course, in the real world we have friction to contend with so the only thing missing is the friction
head. Once we have calculated the friction head which will depend on fluid velocity, pipe size and length
then we add this to the total static head and we get the pump total head.

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The next couple of figures will show how we can determine the static head of various systems. Each
system is surrounded by a boundary which helps locate the various levels of tanks or pipes.

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The dashed line is the boundary of the system, it serves as a reminder of what to consider in our
calculations. The basic principle is you need to include all fluid particles from the inlet of the system to
the outlet. For example, in case 1, we start at the level of the suction tank, we follow the liquid through
the pipe and into the pump up to the discharge tank and further up to the elevation of the liquid in the
discharge tank.

In case 2 which is more typical, we start at the level of the suction tank, we follow the liquid through the
pipe and into the pump up to the discharge tank and into the discharge tank to the end of the pipe and
further up to the elevation of the liquid in the discharge tank.

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System boundary

Points 1 and 2 identify the respectively the inlet and the outlet of the system. Different systems will
have different boundaries, here are a few examples:

Point 1 is where the system begins and point 2 where it ends, with these two locations correctly
identified we can establish the static and friction head from which we derive the pump total head.

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These two systems are examples of incorrectly positioning the boundaries:

This doesn’t cover all the different conditions or output requirements that can occur, only the most
common ones. What happens when you have a pressurize suction tank, or a system where you need a
high velocity jet at the outlet such as a fireman’s hose. I think it best to discuss these in the appendix,
not that they are so complicated to explain but they do require more math and physics to explain
properly. For our current purpose this will be sufficient.

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The term head is a very useful to describe the capacity of a pump to raise a liquid to a height which is
often the main purpose of a pump. There are situations where we need to move a liquid over long
distances with little change in height but and these are much less frequent; and there are many
situations in between.

If you attach a tube to the discharge side of the pump and run the pump, the height that is achieved in
the tube is the pump’s discharge head.

Therefore, if you know the head of a pump you know immediately how high the liquid can be moved
upwards based on the level of the suction tank. If a pump has 10 feet of head at 30 gpm then you know
that you can get the liquid up 10 ft or somewhat less because there is friction to consider.

The head of the pump will vary with the flow rate. The maximum head will be when there is no flow
called the shut-off head. As flow increases, we get to a region in the curve where the efficiency of the
pump is at its maximum and this is the area in which you would like your pump to operate. When you
select the pump you want to find one where the required flow rate is matched by the head you require
at the best efficiency point or B.E.P. And that is very often possible because there is a large selection
pumps and sizes.

It is not good to have the pump run at it run-out flow rate since at that point excessive vibration will
occur and cavitation as well may occur.

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Naturally it is not always possible to select a pump to match exactly our requirements.

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Flow schematic

A flow schematic is a single line diagram that shows the pipes and equipment within the system. It is
often disregarded but no project should be without it. The schematic should tell you everything you
need to know about your system, the tank levels, the pipe sizes and length, the flow, etc. There are two
ways to do a schematic: a flat 2D image which is often sufficient for a simple system or an isometric view
which allows you to see your system in a simulated 3D perspective.

This is a 2D flat view with basic information, it’s just the start of your thinking process or description of
the system.

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The 2D isometric looks like this:

As you can see this is the same system as above but many more twists and turns in the piping can be
shown in the isometric view. The slanted lines in the background are guides for the isometric
perspective. If you follow those lines you will be going either North or South or anything in between. If
you go vertically up you are changing elevation going up or down. Notice that we don’t need to identify
the exact position of where the suction line connects to the tank because that’s not relevant to our goal.
The same applies to the position of the end of the discharge line unless the end discharges to
atmosphere then we need to know the elevation of that point. Here we are mainly interested in the
lengths of the various pipe segments, their diameter and their routing.

Here is the 2D flat schematic as we put more data and the results of our calculations:

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And the 2D isometric schematic:

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All we need to show in the isometric view is where we go up, down, left or right. It gets a little bit more
complicated if you have to go at an angle but remember that piping fittings only come in certain
standard shapes, such a 45 deg. or 22.5. Use the approach that you are most comfortable with,
however, it’s well worth while putting some effort into an isometric view when the routing gets
complicated. The key is to put all the information in one place.

Pressure

As I mentioned pressure is usually not mentioned when talking about pump systems because we are
mostly interested in getting flow through the system at the correct rate. However, we need to
understand pressure and its manifestation if we want to describe how
our pump system is operating; also pressure has many fascinating
aspects.

Blaise Pascal was the first to recognize that a vacuum could exist and
how to measure it. He was ridiculed for this idea by none other than
Rene Descartes in the mid 1600’s. By vacuum I mean a region of space
where the pressure is less than the atmospheric pressure. The consensus
of the time was that a vacuum could not exist and that “nature abhors a
vacuum”.

He realized that you could measure the atmospheric pressure by using a

glass tube filled with mercury sealed at one end, turned upside down
with the open end inserted into a jar of mercury. In this way the
atmospheric pressure could act on the surface of the mercury and
balance out the weight of the volume of mercury in the tube. The height
of mercury represents the atmospheric pressure. The device is known as
a mercury barometer and is still used today in weather prediction. 30
inches of mercury corresponds to the normal atmospheric pressure at
sea level of 14.7 psia. Anything less indicates low pressure in the
atmosphere which correlates with wind and rain. As you can see as the
level of mercury in the tube varies due to change in the atmospheric pressure a vacuum or low-pressure
area is formed at the top since there is nothing to fill that void.

The unit for pressure in the Imperial system is psi or pounds per square inch and the Pascal (Pa) or
kilopascal (kPa) in the metric system. The values for pressure can vary from zero such as the pressure in
outer space up to any value, and this scale is the psia scale. As a reference 14.7 psia is the value for air
pressure at sea level. Most often the psig scale is used because in everyday pump systems we don’t
encounter vacuum or low pressure conditions. In this scale 0 psig is the same as 14.7 psia. The psig scale
is known as a relative pressure scale and the psia scale is the absolute pressure scale. We sometimes say
that pressure has a negative value such as - 4 psig down to -14.7 psig which is the same as 0 psia. Of
course, negative pressure does not exist and this is merely a way to keep using the psig scale even
though the pressure is lower than atmospheric.

This next image shows the various pressure units along side of the elevation of water that would
produce this pressure.

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Atmospheric pressure varies with elevation, the higher your location the lower the atmospheric
pressure.

Atmospheric pressure at different altitudes

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The previous figure is from the web site: https://www.avs.org/AVS/files/c7/c7edaedb-95b2-438f-adfb-
36de54f87b9e.pdf

If the atmospheric pressure is lower than normal at your location this means that there will be less
pressure at the pump suction. In most everyday cases this is not an issue. In some critical cases it might
be a factor and this effect should be checked to see if the pump will handle this lower pressure. The
atmospheric pressure value is incorporated into a term called the Net Positive Suction Head Available or
N.P.S.H.A. It is compared to the N.P.S.H.R. or the Net Positive Suction Head Required and the N.P.S.H.A.
must be greater than the N.P.S.H.R.. I won’t get into this now since this is rarely an issue with typical
everyday systems.

The siphon

Fluids in movement can behave very curiously, and this can only be understood by considering how
pressure varies within the system. It is possible for a fluid to go upwards without any source of energy
such as a pump using pressure only. This is what happens with a syphon. You can’t do that with solid
objects.

The reason the liquid is suspended is because of low pressure at the top of the tube. Suction provides
the initial lift and filling of the tube; this low pressure suspends the liquid in the tube and allows it to
flow freely. It’s almost like anti-gravity.

Water boiling way below it’s normal boiling temperature

We know that we can boil water at 212 °F using an open pot on a stove. But can you boil water at a
much lower temperature? A liquid such as water under low pressure will boil or vaporize even when the
temperature is relatively low. For example, water will boil at 120 °F when it is at a pressure of 2 psia or
-12.7 psig.

The following chart shows what happens when you vary the temperature and the pressure of in a sealed
volume containing a liquid. As you maintain the pressure - such as the normal case of boiling water in an
open pot – and increase the temperature, when the temperature gets to 212 °F the water will boil. In
terms of the chart you are moving horizontally across until you hit the vaporization line. If you maintain
the temperature and vary the pressure by lowering it in a sealed container you will boil or vaporize the

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liquid when you reach the vapor pressure of that liquid. In this case we are moving vertically downward
on the chart.

This phenomenon is related to cavitation which is a problem that occurs in pumps under certain
conditions at the suction. This is not a common occurrence.

Control valve inlet pressure

As we encounter problems or when we need to understand better how our pump system is functioning,
we need to know what the pressure at any given point in the system. You probably realize by now that
the pressure in the system will vary from point to point since the liquid is moving up and down and
there is more or less accumulated friction. Some systems have a control valve to control the flow. To
select the proper valve, it is critical to know the pressure at the entrance of the valve. This requires an in
depth look at the system taking into account static, friction and pump total head to determine the
pressure at any given point.

The venturi

When a moving liquid enters a constriction, the pressure goes down. This is very counter intuitive, one
would expect the pressure to go up because we are impeding the flow. There is a relationship between
pressure and velocity. Elevation is a form of head since an elevated fluid has potential energy, pressure
is also a form of head and so is velocity. As you probably know energy can neither be created or
destroyed but one form of energy can be converted into another. An example is a cyclist at the top of a
hill. Even standing still she has potential energy because of the height she has with respect to the
bottom of the hill. As she begins to move downward her potential energy is converted to velocity energy
or kinetic energy.

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A similar situation happens when a fluid is approaching a constriction. At this point the pressure is
relatively high providing high pressure energy or pressure head. As the fluid enters the constriction the
velocity goes up, the same amount of fluid must go through since there is nowhere else for it
to go. If it must go through a smaller opening at the same rate then the velocity must increase.
If the velocity goes up, the velocity energy goes up and by the principle of conservation of
energy the pressure energy must decrease, therefore the pressure drops. In the same fashion
that the cyclist’s elevation energy or potential energy is converted to velocity or kinetic energy;
in this case the pressure energy is converted to velocity energy.

In fact, you can create a significant amount of low pressure down to 1-2 psia (atmospheric
pressure is 14.7 psia) with a very simple cheap plastic device that you can install on your sink
tap called a Nalgene vacuum pump that you can purchase at Fisher Scientific. If you have a
sealed container you can use this pump to demonstrate that water can boil at a low
temperature. Such containers are readily found in laboratory supplies such as a flask with a
necked down top where a cork or rubber stopper and a hole for a tube, but any glass bottle
with a neck will do.

Flow rate

The other important characteristic of a pump system is flow rate. Flow rate is expressed in gallons per
minute (gpm) in the Imperial system and in liters per minute (l/min) or meters cubed per hour (m3/h) in

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the metric system. Let’s see if we can develop an intuitive sense for flow rate by looking at the
requirements of some daily tasks.

Filling a drinking glass requires about 0.6 gpm if you want to keep the water in the glass. A bathtub
requires around 6-10 gpm to fill it in a reasonable amount of time. If you have a remote cottage and you
have your own water pump then you will want to size the pump for 20-30 gpm to accommodate more
than one bathroom and other services.

These are typical situations. In industry you will encounter much greater flow rates where 1000 gpm is
typical and 20,000 gpm is at the high end.

Pipe size, flow rate and friction

Pipe size and flow rate are linked. You can imagine that it will be difficult or take a long time to fill a
bathtub with a ¼” diameter tube. The link between these two is the velocity of the liquid in the pipe and
the friction it produces. The velocity will be equal to the flow rate divided by the cross-sectional area of
the tube or pipe.

Vel = flow rate / area

In the Imperial system we use the unit of ft/s for velocity and using typical units for flow rate and
diameter we get
𝑓𝑡 𝑞(𝑔𝑝𝑚)
𝑣 ( ) = 0.4085 ×
𝑠 (𝑑(𝑖𝑛))2
where q is the flow rate, v the velocity and d the tube internal diameter.

A typical rule of thumb for sizing a pipe is to stay within a velocity range of 9-12 ft/s. This will keep the
friction head at a reasonable value and help you size a pipe, at least initially.

Friction is very common in everything that we do, try sliding something across the floor and you will see
that it is not easy to keep the movement going, it takes energy. Throw a ball and it won’t go as far as if

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there were no air friction; the same applies to riding a bike, air friction is a major component of the
resistance moving forward.

It’s the same with liquids moving in a pipe, friction between the liquid and the pipe wall as well as
between the fluid particles themselves (turbulence) tends to slow down the movement and to keep the
liquid going you have to continue applying energy.

The following chart shows the value for friction for different pipe sizes at a velocity of 10 ft/s and the
corresponding flow rate. The friction is shown in terms of friction head and this is no different than
height being understood as static head. Since for every application the pipe length will be different,
friction head is shown as friction head per 100 ft of pipe. This is typical in all pipe friction tables.

For example, the friction head loss for a 1” diameter pipe, 50 feet long and a velocity of 10 ft/s is

47 x 50 /100 = 23 ft.

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The above chart shows that for the same velocity small pipes produce much more friction than larger
pipes. Therefore, one has to be more careful when selecting small pipes as the friction is likely to be
higher than expected or desirable. The next figure shows what happens when we reduce the velocity by
half or 5 ft/s.

Why does a small pipe have so much more friction than a large pipe for the same velocity? Friction is
due to two factors, the turbulence in the liquid and the contact of the liquid with the internal pipe wall
surface. This surface has roughness and certain pipe materials are rougher than others (see the next
figure). When the pipe is small the rough peaks and valleys through which the liquid must flow occupy
more of the space comparatively to a larger pipe causing the portion of friction due to liquid contact
with the wall to increase.

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23
Appendix

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The calculations for friction loss due to flow resistance through pipes are not complicated and they are
listed here so that you may do your own calculations.

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26
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From the Crane Technical manual 410

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From this web site: https://www.commercial-industrial-supply.com/resource-center/pvc-pipe-and-
fittings-dimensions/

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From this web site http://media.wattswater.com/ES-ClearVinyltubing.pdf

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 Actual Type
Size outer diameter, K L M
inches Actual inner diameter, inches
3/8 1/2 0.402 0.430 0.450
1/2 5/8 0.528 0.545 0.569
5/8 3/4 0.652 0.668 0.690
3/4 7/8 0.745 0.785 0.811
1 1 1/8 0.995 1.025 1.055
1¼ 1 3/8 1.245 1.265 1.291
1½ 1 5/8 1.481 1.505 1.527
2 2 1/8 1.959 1.985 2.009

Type L is the most commonly used tube. This data comes from:
https://www.sizes.com/materials/pipeCopper.htm

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