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Chemical Engineering vocabulary · Fluid Flow, Pumps and Piping

Pump

Meaning in chemical engineering, with examples

/pʌmp/nounCore term

In chemical engineering, pump means: A machine that moves a liquid through pipes by adding pressure to it. Most plant pumps are centrifugal; others are positive displacement types such as gear or diaphragm pumps.

In Turkish: pompa

How it is used

Used every day in operations and design. Operators start, stop, prime and switch pumps; engineers size them using a pump curve and specify head, flow and NPSH. Critical services often have a spare: 'pump A running, pump B on standby'.

Example sentences

  1. Switch to the standby pump; pump A is vibrating badly.

  2. The pump can't deliver the design flow against the new discharge pressure.

Common collocations

  • centrifugal pump
  • standby pump
  • pump curve
  • start the pump
  • pump discharge
  • NPSHShort for net positive suction head: the margin between the pressure at the pump inlet and the liquid's vapor pressure, expressed as meters of liquid.
  • cavitationThe forming and violent collapse of vapor bubbles in a liquid when local pressure falls below its vapor pressure, usually at a pump inlet or across a valve.
  • flow rateThe amount of fluid that passes a point in a given time, given either as mass (kg/h) or as volume (m³/h).
  • pressure dropThe loss of pressure as a fluid flows through a pipe, valve, filter, bed or piece of equipment, caused mainly by friction.
  • compressorA machine that raises the pressure of a gas by reducing its volume. The main types are centrifugal, reciprocating and screw compressors.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Fluid Flow, Pumps and Piping

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