Description

The 2012 version of the Pump Intake Design Standard is a completely updated and expanded version of the widely respected Intake Design standard issued in 1998. Developed by experts in sump design, researchers specialized in fluid flow dynamics, and senior engineers representing pump manufacturers and the end user community, this standard enables designers, owners, and users to configure functional pumping facility designs and provides remedial measures for problem intakes.

Ideally, the flow of liquid into any pump should be uniform, steady, and free from swirl and entrained air. Lack of uniformity can cause the pump to operate away from the optimum design condition and at a lower hydraulic efficiency. This standard addresses specific phenomena that can adversely affect the performance of pumps, including:

Submerged vortices
Free surface vortices
Preswirl magnitude and fluctuation with time
Nonuniform distribution of velocity in space and time at the impeller eye
Entrained air or gas bubbles

The standard provides a flowchart to serve as a guide to the use of this standard and can be used to locate the appropriate section(s) in the standard. The following types of intakes are included in this standard:Rectangular intakes

Formed suction intakes
Circular pump stations
Trench-type intakes for clear liquids and for solids-bearing liquids
Tanks – pump suction
Can vertical turbine pump intakes
Unconfined intakes
Circular plan wet pit for solids-bearing liquids

Other topics of interest in this standard include:

Physical model studies of intake structures and when they are necessary
Inlet bell design
Required submergence for minimizing surface vortices
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
Performance enhancements for trench-type wet wellsAlternate formed suction intake designs