On paper, it could seem simple: water is pumped to different location. However there are a myriad of factors which can influence the distance between two points, which include elevation of the ground, flow rate solids, pressure storage capacity, and access to maintenance.
Image credit: romtecutilities.com
For Romtec Utilities to design a pump station begins by setting the operating conditions, instead of choosing equipment from a catalog. After that, initial designs and budgetary requirements can be formulated according to what is required by the project.
The first step is to ask What are we doing?
The engineering is changed immediately.
There could be a significant fluctuation in the flow rate of the domestic sewage. The wastewater lift station is needed when gravity conveyance cannot or will not function. Engineers must consider the anticipated inflow and peak conditions, pumping capacities as well as wet-well behaviour and discharge specifications, and how the equipment will be maintained and operated.
The difficulties of industrial water are different. Fluids which are caustic, oily or possess high temperatures or pressures might be needed by a processing or manufacturing facility. Romtec Utilities designs systems for industrial applications ranging from food processing to power generation, databases, pharmaceutical waste facilities and petroleum and gas facilities.
Rainfall creates a completely different operating system
Stormwater systems are usually inactive for extended periods and then suddenly confront an enormous volume of water during a storm.
A stormwater lift station associated with a detention basin, for example, must work with the site’s larger drainage strategy. The runoff is absorbed by the detention basin, the temporary storage is responsible for the immediate volume, and the pumping system moves the collected water to a discharge point that is approved.
Romtec Utilities offered this type of solution to an Norco, California business park. The project required a pumping device to drain a detention basin into the public stormwater system. The station was designed to work as a component of a drainage system in a development, not as an isolated piece of equipment.
“Package” Doesn’t Need to Be Off-the-Shelf
A lot of people think that a package-pumping system is simply a predetermined set of components.
For engineering infrastructure, packing could mean coordinating all the major pieces into one project-specific system. Controls, pumps and meters as well as structural elements and other equipment can be selected in accordance with the requirements of the project.
That approach becomes especially useful when a brand new system needs to be connected to existing infrastructure. In industrial plants and municipal buildings, there’s rarely unlimited space available or a completely clean environment for installation. Equipment may need to be built around the existing pipe systems, structures, electrical system, and operating schedules.
Capacity planning has real implications
Undersizing becomes particularly costly when facilities grow.
Romtec Utilities supplied a sewer lift station in Portland International Airport for the PDX Next extension. The new station was required be constructed to provide twice the capacity at peak flow when the airport was expanded.
It illustrates a crucial engineering principle: design conditions shouldn’t represent only what a facility handles on an ordinary afternoon. Engineers should be aware of what happens when demand is high.
The work isn’t done until the equipment arrives.
At some point, drawings and calculations must become an operational system. Coordination of installation and documentation are essential to the success of the long term.
A properly engineered pumping system is largely determined by what happens in the years following the construction. The decisions made in the initial design are clear when the equipment requires maintenance, flows increase or an event occurs.
For Romtec Utilities to integrate those decision-making processes into a total specific pumping program helps turn individual pieces of equipment into infrastructure specifically designed for the conditions they’ll be confronted with.