PUMP TYPES AND SUPPLIERS
The following is a list of pump types with their supplier web sites. It is not an exhaustive list
and it will be added to progressively. It is intended to show the variety of pumps that are available.
This means you will only find one or two links to supplier web sites per pump type.
There is a pump for every need it would seem, I find it fascinating to see how much invention and diversity has
occurred in this field. To see how complex a pump database can get take a look at the various ways that they can be classified
and differentiated in this word document.
A complete pump search database is being elaborated which will feature many of the pumps shown below.
Also if you are looking for pump and pump related images, this database will help you search for image content.
Small Solar powered pumps
Great little pumps for garden fountains or statuary at low cost powered by the sun.
| Silicon Solar |
Small residential pumps
Pumps for garden fountains or ponds powered by the sun
Medium Solar powered pumps
Pumps for water supply of the house or cottage or for pond recirculation powered by the sun.
Manual pumps
Manual pumps for remote areas, can be converted to solar power.
| Solar4 Power |
Manual diaphragm pump
Used for any numbers of de-watering tasks as a bilge pump for example.
Fire pumps
Vertical and horizontal split case. Commercial and industrial fire protection.
| https://www.peerlesspump.com/ |
Fire truck pumps
Fire department truck engine driven pumps
| https://www.darley.com/ |
Industrial centrifugal pumps
End-suction, horizontal split-case, vertical turbine, and multistage pumps for industry.
| https://www.peerlesspump.com/ | |
Double volute pump
A double volute pump is one where the immediate volute of the impeller is separated by a partition from the main body of the casing. The result is that the impeller is subjected to equal forces that are generated at the cutwater positions and therefore is balanced hydraulically. A single volute pump always has a net hydraulic force that acts on the impeller causing wear and tear on the rotating components, the force gets larger the further one operates away from the optimum flow at the Best Efficiency Point (B.E.P.).
Schematic of the double volute design (source: Pumps & Systems magazine June 2004.
The double volute pump is therefore more robust and will require less maintenance, however it is less efficient and more expensive.
Double volute pumps are available in the medium to large size pumps from most manufacturers.
Availability of double volute pumps (source: Pumps & Systems magazine June 2004.
Chopper pump
Municipal waste
| Chopper pumps |
High pressure pumps
Used in commercial or industrial environments for the provision of high pressure water, typically for cleaning showers.
| https://www.global.weir/ |
Water pumps
Small water supply pumps for residential or commercial use.
Large (low head high flow) water transfer pumps
Used for flood control, drainage, flood irrigation, water supply, aquaculture, amusement parks etc.
Turbine (peripheral pumps)
Water transfer for commercial and industrial sectors including cooling and conditioning systems
| https://www.floridapumpservice.com/products/turbine-peripheral-pumps/ |
Mobile de-watering
Used where temporary de-watering is required
| https://www.xylem.com/en-US/brands/godwin/ |
Sludge pump: certain types of sludges tend to settle very quickly and are hard to keep in suspension. The Lawrence pump company has solved this problem by putting an agitator in front of the pump suction.
Small pumps
It can be difficult to find small pumps for home projects such as fountains or small water falls. Usually, if you do an internet search you will wind up on aquarium supply sites. These are not usually adequate for the job, often under-powered and no flow and head information.
There is one area that uses small pumps extensively, the residential thermal hot water panel supply sector. The pumps are used to move a glycol solution to the solar thermal panels and often through a radiant floor heating systems (Figure 1).
Solar hot water thermal system.
In the close loop system shown in figure 1, glycol has to be pumped up to the collector which could be 30-40 ft up. But since the energy is recovered on the down side there is no static head and the pump is only required to overcome friction head. This results in a very small pump with low power requirements. The pumps are directly mounted to the motor in a nice compact package with DC or AC motors. The DC motors can be powered by a PV solar panel for applications that are remotely located. If you are worried about corrosion many of these pumps are available in different materials such as stainless steel, bronze or iron.
| Pumps | Volts | Watts | Shut off head (ft) | gpm at head |
| Taco 009F | 120 | 168 | 34 | 5 at 20 ft |
| Grundfos 26-96F | 120 | 205 | 30 | 15 at 14 ft |
| Taco 011F | 120 | 211 | 30 | 15 at 18 ft |
| Grundfos 15-42F | 120 | 85 | 16 | 10 at 9 ft |
| Taco 008F | 120 | 95 | 16 | 10 at 8 ft |
| Taco 006B | 120 | 62 | 8 | 5 at 5 ft |
| Grundfos 15-18SU | 120 | 85 | 7 | 5 at 5 ft |
| March 809-BR-HS 12VDC | 12 | 50 | 15 | 4 at 8 ft |
| March 809-BR 12VDC | 12 | 20 | 7 | 3 at 3 ft |
| El-Sid 20PV direct | 12 | 20 | 4 | 3 at 42 in. |
| El-Sid 10PV direct | 12 | 10 | 3.3 | 2 at 35 in. |
List of small pumps for home projects.
Small pump web sites:
Bell & Gossett
Bell & Gossett small pump brochure,
also this is an intersting manual on the parts required to making a hydronic (heated floor) system work.
Grundfos pumps
Taco
Another area that uses small pumps is computer cooling and aquarium supplies.
This pump, Laing DDC, used in computer cooling by is particularly powerful for its size (2" W x 3" L x 1" H). It can provide 1.5 gpm at 12 ft of head. It's innovative design includes a spherical impeller mounted in a ceramic bowl eliminating seal, shaft and bearings.
Another small pump manufacturer used for computer cooling and aquarium water transfer is the small Hydor Seltz pump which can be found in many aquarium supply shops.
Fish handling pump: a pump designed to transfer fish over long distances.
photo curtesy of Aqualife.
Beverage CO2 pump: a small diaphragm pump used in beverage machines to transfer and mix syrup with water. Self-priming up to 10 ft. Can be used with CO2 gas, air or nitrogen with pressures varying from 20-80 psi. Flow rate 1.8 gpm maximum.
the above photo shows an ITT Flojet pump.
A pump such as this is used to build the Frankenshower, which is a portable camping shower using a CO2 beverage pump and a propane gas burner to heat the water.
The CO2 pump is powered with propane, the gas burner heats the water, one power source is used for two functions, very ingenious. See this invention by Bob Beekman of Alberta in the Daily Planet episode
shown on this video.
Jet pumps
This pump is used frequently for domestic water supply. It is a typical centrifugal pump with the difference that the suction is augmented by a venturi which creates a vacuum allowing water to be lifted from a deep well. It is an ingenious use of the pump own discharge pressure and flow to provide pressure water at the inlet of a venturi which is located in the pump suction.
The jet of water is accelerated in the small diameter of the venturi which creates a low pressure or vacuum, this vacuum is used to assist in lifting the water in the well to the suction compartment of the pump. One big advantage is there is no need to use a foot valve (i.e. check valve) at the end of the suction pipe, this reduces the maintenance on this item and potential plugging.
| Figure 2 The venturi action of a jet pump. |
Viscous drag pumps
The impeller of this pump is a flat disc that accelerates the fluid by shearing the fluid. The ability of the fluid to resist this shear force (this is the definition of viscosity) means that a certain quantity of fluid will follow the disc and be accelerated towards the pump casing. As in a normal pump, the velocity energy of the fluid is converted to pressure energy when the fluid hits the stationary casing. The advantage of this pump is that it can handle large quantities of air or gazes and still perform which is not the case for traditional centrifugal pumps. Because the discs are open there are no tight passages as in traditional curved impeller vane passages and therefore solids can be handled effectively. These pump are available from the Discflo Corporation in a variety of sizes.
| Figure 3 The discflo pump by Discflo Crp. see https://discflo.com/ |
Chopper pumps
This type of pump has a serrated impeller edge which can cut large solids and therefore prevent clogging. It is used for municipal waste handling and would no doubt be very useful for handling slurries containing many different type of solids such as in the pulp and paper industry.
| Figure 4 The Chopper pump by The Vaughan Co. Inc. |
Rotating casing (pitot) pumps
This pump’s specialty is low to medium flow rates at high pressures. It is frequently used for high pressure shower supply on paper machines.
| Figure 5a The rotating casing Roto-Jet pump by Weir specialty Pump see https://www.global.weir/brands/roto-jet/ |
Roto-Jet pumps are designed with only two working parts, a stationary pick-up tube (pitot tube) and a rotating casing. These pump come with a built in recirculation line with an orifice which can bleed high pressure fluid from the discharge to the inlet to avoid damage due to running the pump with a closed discharge valve.
| Figure 5b A sectional view of the rotating casing Roto-Jet pump. |
An alternate choice to this pump is a multi-stage centrifugal pump such as the Goulds model 3355.
Recessed impeller pumps
This pump is a frame-mounted, back pull-out, end suction, recessed impeller, tangential discharge pump designed specifically to handle certain bulky or fibrous solids, air or gas entrained liquids or shear sensitive liquids. For example, certain bulky or fibrous solids like some long denim fiber or recycle stock can clog or abrade parts of conventional process pumps. In addition, shear sensitive liquids like latex are degraded when pumped at high velocities through process pump casings. Last, if air or gas binding is a problem, the recessed impeller is the answer, it can also handle liquids with up to 5% entrained air or gas.
| Figure 6 A sectional view of a recessed impeller pump by Goulds. |
Self-priming pumps
Reliable Self-Priming Operation - Before any centrifugal pump will perform, it must first be primed; that is, air or gases expelled from the suction and impeller eye area, and replaced with liquid.
This is no problem when the pump is submerged (submersible or vertical sump pumps) or when liquid supply is above the pump. However, when suction pressure is negative, air must be evacuated to accomplish pump priming.
The self-priming pump is designed to insure that a sufficient quantity of liquid to reprime is always retained in the priming chamber...a compact, integral and completely functional self-priming pump.
| Figure 6a Outside dimensions for a self-priming pump by Goulds. |
| Figure 6b Priming and pumping action of a self-priming pump. |
Slurry pumps
The slurry pump is a rugged heavy duty pump intended for aggressive or abrasive slurry solutions with particles of various sizes. It achieves this by lining the inside of the pump casing as well as the impeller with rubber. All though rubber does eventually wear, the elasticity of its surface allows the hard mineral particles to bounce off thereby reducing what would be otherwise very aggressive erosion. These pumps are used wherever abrasive slurries need to be pumped, especially in the mining industry. The NPSH requirement for these types of pumps is typically higher than comparative standard centrifugal pumps.
| Figure 7 Slurry pump by Warman see https://www.global.weir/industries/mining/ |
Low flow pumps (radial vane)
This radial vane pump is a frame mounted, end suction, top centerline discharge, ANSI pump designed specifically to handle corrosive chemicals at low flows.
Flows outside the recommended operating range of typical end suction pumps.
Low flows which require users to throttle end suction pumps to operating conditions well below their best efficiency point.
Flows that increase mechanical vibration, decrease bearing and seal life, increase maintenance costs, and decrease the pump life of end suction pumps.
In other words, the radial vane pump is designed to operate where standard end suction pumps operate poorly - at throttled low flows.
| Figure 8 Low flow vane pump by Teikoku |
Low n.p.s.h. pumps (low flow, high head)
This type of pump is used where the available N.P.S.H. is low. It is specifically designed for low flow and high head requirements and offers good efficiency even under these conditions .
| Figure 9 Low N.P.S.H. pump model CPX by Flowserve |