Debris plugging screen wash sump.
Bottleneck and maintenance now eliminated.
Intake water for industrial and power plants require vast quantities of water. Debris and live organisms must be screened. Intake screens go through wash cycles, generating large amounts of concentrated debris.
At a Gulf Coast power plant, the screen wash sumps were a constant maintenance headache with debris ranging from seaweed, sticks and burlap bags, to milk jugs, boards and live fish, shrimp and crabs. Their centrifugal trash pumps were plugging and binding with heavy debris loading. Environmental concerns were raised as the pump chopping action was killing live organisms.
A 12 inch Pitbull pump rated at 600 GPM was installed. With the inherent unrestricted flow path design, debris capable of passing through 12 inch piping was pumped. A 12 inch elbow was fitted on the pump inlet to restrict long boards, that while passing through the Pitbull, would later be caught in downstream piping elbows.
Pitbull pumping action has proven to be gentle enough on the organisms that environmental concerns have been eliminated. Survival studies on different organisms pumped have documented Pitbull performance as equal to specially designed “fish handling” pumps.
Over the past three years, no maintenance has been required in the screen wash sump, no spare parts purchased and the plugging problems have been eliminated.
