Disc pump-type pump technology for hard-to-pump applications

This paper describes a unique pumping concept based on a noncontact mechanism operating solely using the principles of boundary layer and viscous drag. The first section focuses on the Dumping technology itself, describing how the pump mechanism operates, while the second section examines how the pump functions in problem applications, such as handling abrasive, viscous, high solids, air-entrained, and shear sensitive fluids. The next section describes the Dump operating and design characteristics, including information on the pump's NPSH requirement and other standard pump performance data. The final section describes an end-user's experience with the disc pump in an oil refinery application. The disc pump system operates solely using the principles of boundary layer and viscous drag, two phenomenona well-known in fluid engineering. Although superficially the disc pump looks like a centrifugal unit, it has no impeller in the traditional sense, and uses instead a series of parallel, rotating discs, referred to in this paper as the "disc assembly," to generate the energy necessary to move product. The key difference between the disc assembly and a standard centrifugal pump impeller is that, with the disc assembly, the pumpage does not impinge on the rotating pump mechanism, so that it generates a pulsation-free, laminar flow pattern through the pump. The disc pump can operate effectively in hard-to-pump applications because it lacks an "impingement" device, which results in minimal contact between the pump and pumpage.