Pump (machine)

“ Where power can be had from a shaft in motion there is no pump so economical as the power or belt driven pump. This fact is shown by the rapid increase in the number of applications of this type of pump: the reduced cost of manufacture in making the teeth of the gear wheels, the use of automatic machinery, the production of interchangeable parts have tended to produce a high grade of machine at an attractive price. ”

“ The pump has a slow motion, 60 revolutions per minute. It has two single action pistons, and the valves are so simple and readily accessible that an ordinary mechanic can examine and repair, when necessary, in a short time. The accumulator is so arranged as to overflow when it comes to its maximum height. The machine can be adapted to stretching and straightening wires in lengths to a given amount. ”

“ The pump shown has a stroke of 14 ins., with an air-cylinder diameter of 28 ins. The machine is a dry air pump, and is fitted with Corliss inlet valves and special leather exhaust valves: it is fitted with ring-oiling bearings and automatic continuous lubrication, and under test it shows a mechanical efficiency of 78 per cent. from power input to air horse-power delivered. Such a pump is suitable for a plant handling 20 to 25 tons per hour and, if preferred, the pump may be driven through gearing from an electric motor on the same bed-plate. ”

“ This apparatus consists of a jet condenser with air pump, boiler feed pump, and engine to drive both, combined as one machine. The air pump is a single acting bucket plunger pump, driven by a crank shaft, turned by the engine, which is a single cylinder compound automatic cut-off engine, and also drives the boiler feed pump ”

“ A single acting pump is one in which the water enters the pump barrel during one piston or plunger stroke, and is expelled from the pump during the next stroke, hence the action of the suction and of the delivery is intermittent, although the pump is in continuous action. ”

“ As a sinking or station pump for mine service, the turbine pump is ideal. There are no valves, guards or springs, no reciprocating parts, and, most important of all, there is no contact surface in the machine except the shaft and its bearings. ”

“ PUMP, [1] a machine which drives a liquid from one point to another, generally at different levels, the latter being usually the higher; an air-pump is an appliance for exhausting or removing the air or other gas from a vessel, whilst a compression pump compresses the air. The simplest forms of pumps employed for forcing liquids are “plunger pumps,” consisting essentially of a piston moving in a cylinder, provided with inlet and outlet pipes, together with certain valves. The disposition of these valves divides this type of pump into suction pumps and force pumps. ”

“ As the steam pressure increases, a regulator that shuts off the supply of gasoline is operated automatically, and so the pressure is maintained.
The water from which the steam is made is also fed automatically into the boiler, when the engine is in motion, by a pump worked by the engine piston. A hand-pump is also supplied by which the driver can keep the proper amount when the machine is still or in case of a breakdown. A water-gauge in plain sight keeps the driver informed at all times as to the amount of water in the boiler. ”

“ It is a decided disadvantage to have to move the plunger so far and in actual commercial practice hand-operated hydraulic presses are not worked in that way. A pump is used to force water into the cylinder so that a great many short strokes may be taken in place of one long one, and the pump handle provides an added leverage, enabling a man with little effort to exert an enormous lift. The water enters the ram cylinder through a valve, and the pressure is maintained on the ram until relieved by the opening of an outlet port. ”

“ European centrifugal pumps with their small impellers and consequent high speed of rotation, are especially liable to this repelling action, and very often are wholly inefficient from this cause. One maker who claims a high duty for his pumps, attaches a screw at the sides of the impeller to coax the water into the pump, and the idea is a good one if the difficulty is not otherwise provided for. In this way a pump can be made of smaller diameter for a given duty, but it is commonly inferior to a larger one for the same work.”—Industries. ”

“ It is due very largely to the numerous designs of steam valves, that difficulty has been encountered in managing single-cylinder pumps as successfully as those of the duplex type, the similarity of construction in the latter type, even in minor details, being much more marked.
The successful operation of a pump depends to a great extent upon the intelligence displayed in its management, and an engineer can scarcely hope to obtain quiet and smooth running pumps and freedom from breakdowns and perplexing delays except by a thorough knowledge of the details of construction and operation. ”

“ I realized the great value of this most original invention, now so well known, but its adoption required a rescheming of the valve-gear, and that had to be postponed for some years.
In setting up the engine in the works of Easton, Amos & Sons, I had a curious example of English pertinacity. Old Mr. Amos said to me, “Porter, where is your pump?” “The engine has no pump.” “No pump!” “No, sir; we consider a feed-pump as an adjunct to the boiler, never put it on the engine, and generally employ independent feed-pumps which can be adjusted to the proper speed. ”

“ The big, electric motor spun into action and settled into a workmanlike hum. The overhead light dimmed briefly when the pump load was thrown on and then the slip-slap sound of the pump filled the shed. They watched and listened for a couple of minutes. Assured that the pump was working satisfactorily, they left the wrecked pumphouse.
Johnny was carrying the gasoline can of milk. "Good thing you set this off to one side where it didn't get hit and go off," he said. "The way this stuff reacts, we'd be without a pump, engine, or windmill if it had. ”

“ A vacuum pump is an apparatus consisting of, 1, a chamber or barrel; 2, a suction pipe with a valve to prevent return flow; 3, a discharge pipe which has a valve which is closed when the chamber is emptied and, 4, a steam induction pipe provided with a valve that is opened when the chamber is filled with water and closed when the chamber is filled with steam.
It is not right to call an air pump a vacuum pump, as the latter does not move air alone; it removes water, vapor and air from the condenser to form a vacuum. An air pump is designed to pump air alone. ”

“ Although this pump from Colonel Thacher was probably around fifty years old, it proved to be a most reliable and excellent piece of apparatus, consisting of a large, horizontal, single cylinder, “make and break” engine, driving a heavy, eighteen-inch rubber diaphragm pump. It certainly puts to shame some of the modern pump equipment of today, chugging along hour after hour like a patient old horse without much noise and clatter. ”

“ The automatic action of the pump and its speed are controlled by a float in the receiver operating directly, without the use of intervening levers, cranks and stuffing boxes, to open or close a governor valve in the steam supply pipe to the pump, thus making the action of the pump conditional upon the rise and fall of the float in the receiver. ”

“ Motors, in which water descending from a higher to a lower level, or from a higher to a lower pressure, gives up energy which is available for mechanical operations; (2) Pumps, in which the energy of a steam engine or other motor is expended in raising water from a lower to a higher level. A few machines such as the ram and jet pump combine the functions of motor and pump. It may be noted that constructively pumps are essentially reversed motors. The reciprocating pump is a reversed pressure engine, and the centrifugal pump a reversed turbine. ”

“ For instance, there are machines for bending pipe, for curving railroad rails, for punching holes in metal, for pulling wheels off their shafts, for jacking up heavy weights, for baling cotton, paper, and other materials, all of which operate on the same principle as the hydraulic press. Water pressure is supplied sometimes by a hand pump, sometimes by a [100] power-driven pump, and sometimes it is taken from a reservoir in which compressed air imparts the requisite pressure to the water. ”

“ Fig. 161 represents a double acting force pump used extensively on ship-board, wharves, around factories, mills, etc., and in residences, for tank pumping. On ships these pumps perform the three-fold purpose of filling boilers when cold, washing down decks and to satisfy government inspection as to fire protection; in service in mines they are unaffected by mine water, the working parts being made non-corrosive. It is claimed that a three-inch diameter cylinder with a stroke of four and a half inches with a 11⁄4-inch suction pipe and 1-inch discharge pipe will lift and force water 150 ft. ”

“ Engraving, Fig. 243, represents a Quintuplex pump used principally in mining operations, or wherever large quantities of water are to be delivered under high pressure in the shortest possible space of time. The pump here shown was designed to deliver 225 gallons of water per minute under a head of 1,200 feet. It has five plungers 4 inches in diameter each and having a uniform stroke of 12 inches.
These pumps driven by electric motors it is said represent the most economical method of transmitting power, as compared with the best designs of steam pumps. An efficiency of 80 per cent. ”

“ The indeterminate thing beside the searchlight turned out to be a hand pump, geared to work against heavy pressure. From the suction chamber of this three tubes extended.
"We inhale the air of the chamber," the Professor explained to me, "and exhale through the tubes into the pump cylinder. Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. The pump piston is forced down by this geared handle, sending the used air out of the shell through this sixteenth-inch hole. A ball check valve keeps the water from squirting in when the exhaust pressure is released." ”

“ This engraving is plain and requires no description. Fig. 170 shows a diaphragm pump in which a sheet of rubber or its equivalent is used as a substitute for a piston in a cylinder.
Fig. 170.
Note.—When an ox or a horse plunges his mouth into a stream, he dilates his chest and the atmosphere forces the liquid up into his stomach precisely as up the pipe of a pump. It is indeed in imitation of these natural pumps that water is raised in artificial ones. The thorax is the pump; the muscular energy of the animal, the power that works it ”

“ The main feed pump is, even in the independent type, often placed in the engine room, while the auxiliary pump, or the injector, is in the fire room. The feed pumps draw usually from the hot well, feed heater and feed tanks and discharge through main feed pipe into the boiler.
162
This “doctor” pump is a substantial piece of mechanism. The bases of columns and pump chamber flanges are accurately planed, the cylinder has spring piston packing and the plain slide valve is made of gun metal. ”

“ The high-class turbine pumps of to-day are simply machines in which the water is given a velocity which is partially changed to pressure before discharge, and the pump is designed so that the well-known actions, outlined above, proceed along natural lines, which are, to use the common phrase, lines of least resistance. It is simply a question of careful design.
The modern pump causes the water to flow along paths naturally due to the forces acting and to guide the stream in such a way as to avoid the production of eddies and whirls within itself which so enormously cut down the efficiency. ”

“ If you do understand the old town pump, I will not have much trouble with you, for while there is no old style wooden pump used on the engine, the same principles are used in the cross head pump. Do not imagine that a cross head pump means something to be dreaded. It is only a simple lift and force pump, driven from the cross head. ”

“ Careful experiments on a large number of pumps of various makes at full speed, show that in a new pump with clean valves, and an air-tight suction pipe, and less than 15 feet lift, the actual delivery is only from 11⁄2 to 5 per cent. less than plunger displacement. This slip will increase with wear, and for a good average pump in practical use, probably 10 per cent. is a fair allowance to cover slip, valve leakage, slight short-stroke, etc. ”

“ Experience shows that duplex pumps are more certain of starting after long disuse. The whole power of the main cylinder is available for moving a corroded valve or valve rod, whereas on a single pump with a “steam-thrown” valve no such surplus of power is available.
Further, the direct acting duplex has the great advantage over a fly-wheel pump of not suffering breakage if water gets into steam cylinder. ”

“ If the pump is to work under this condition, it is better to use a pump with a vertical discharge and deliver through an elbow, or else lead the discharge pipe upward for a short distance so as to keep a slight pressure, or head on the pump, and after priming as high as possible start quickly.
Generally nothing is gained by running a pump above the proper speed required for a given elevation. ”

“ The full-stroke crosshead pump with which the Jenny Lind (fig. 22) is equipped, was of course the most common style of feed pump used in this country in the 19th century.
Of all the mechanisms on a 19th-century locomotive, the feed pump was the most troublesome. If an engineer could think of nothing else to complain about, he could usually call attention to a defective pump and not be found a liar. ”