PTS Flowbench Forum

Hi all,

I am new to the group. Seems to be allot of good info on the site.

Anyone out there with experience in water flow benches at high flow rates?

Jason

Welcome to the Forum Jason, We do have a section dedicated to wet flow specifically when you say high flow rates what exactly are you looking for liquid volume or raw CFM volume ?

Are you planning on building a wet flow bench?

Rick

Rick,

Yes, I am looking a building a wet flow bench.

I am mostly concerned with volumetric flow rate around 2000 l/m (528 GPM).

The bench will be for erosion testing with a sand slurry as a media. There are going to many factor to consider. But right now I am looking for ideas on pumps or a delivery system for slurry or water at these flow rates.

Jason

I think there's a misunderstanding of what Rick means by a wet flow bench, he means an air flow bench in which liquid can be introduced into the air stream, it's used to help visualize the air flow and to investigate things like fuel drop out. The type flow bench you're interested in isn't something we deal usually with here although perhaps a few of the members may have something to contribute. In any event, it sounds like an interesting project, good luck.

Jason wrote:The bench will be for erosion testing with a sand slurry as a media. There are going to many factor to consider. But right now I am looking for ideas on pumps or a delivery system for slurry or water at these flow rates.

This will be interesting. I agree with 86rocco I think there is a misunderstanding regarding "wetflow" benches. I think your idea (wet sandy slurry) will cause problems with the vacuum motors and the flow bench internals purely because of its abrasive nature.

I believe this technique is called "extrude honing" where an abrasive slurry, (or a thick paste) is forced through the port and it mechanically erodes away the points of greatest restriction.

This is a completely new topic that has never before been raised at this Forum, and strictly speaking it has nothing at all to do with an airflow bench.
Its really a very different way to do the actual porting and remove metal, there is no flow measurement involved.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrasive_flow_machining

Extrude honing is interesting and effective Tony, There's a guy down your way who made a machine, he does turbo housings and inlet manifolds with it and gets good results. As you say, there's no airflow measurement capability in the machine

I think Jason is into something totally different to that.

Jason wrote: I am mostly concerned with volumetric flow rate around 2000 l/m (528 GPM).

If your mostly concerned with fluid flow, an industrial flow meter should measure fluid flow in this case. make sure its suited for mixed or bulky media Any sort of airflow measurement that I know of won't work.

Jason wrote: But right now I am looking for ideas on pumps or a delivery system for slurry or water at these flow rates.

The vacuum motors most of us use are not even remotely worth considering. Ditto with a supercharger style or centrifugal type fan. Abrasive media will chop up any style of air mover we talk about here in 5 minutes.

Jason, have a look at diaphragm sludge pumps which are used in sewerage and waste removal. I have one here that works a treat for sludge removal. It weighs about 15 kgs and the flow rate is 28 GPM. With your target of 528 GPM you may need a rather large pump!

Ring someone in your area who pumps waste. Ask them the flow rate of their biggest machine. Then go and check it out.

Perhaps give us some more details if I've missed the points of your questions

Jim

I suppose this could be compared (in a way) to sand blasting, using water instead of air to carry the cutting medium.

Whatever pumps the water, may not necessarily have to also pump the cutting medium, it could be added down stream of the pump.
The problem might be separating the discharge water from all the grit and metal for recycling back through the pump for a second pass.

The only way I can think of doing that might be with a very large settling tank, and then it would essentially have to be a one pass operation for each job.
Pumping previously filtered water from one large tank, through the job, into a second large storage and settling tank.

Once all the solid debris settles out, maybe overnight, return the filtered water back to the first tank, and recover the grit from the bottom.

Its rather a lot of water to store.
500+ GPM, and I believe from what I have read that extrude honing is not a particularly fast process.

Here is some Slurry pumps I do not think any of these pumps are going to be cheap at all

http://www.gouldspumps.com/Products/JC/

forgot to add this link

http://www.bjmpumps.com/products/sand-s ... nd-slurry/

Malvin wrote: I do not think any of these pumps are going to be cheap at all

Hmmmm, I think I'll stick with air......

Jim