Problem of static head at the inlet of hydrocarbon pumps
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A newcomer is asking: why is it necessary to maintain a static head at the inlet of the hydrocarbon pump during liquefied gas loading and unloading, and what is a static head?
The pressure at the inlet is mainly due to the relatively high saturated vapor pressure of liquefied gas, which facilitates vaporization and leads to pump cavitation.
Agree with the opinion above; air erosion in the pump can be quite troublesome
Light hydrocarbons have relatively low boiling points and saturated vapor pressures, which makes it easy for transfer pumps to experience cavitation and fail to deliver these hydrocarbons. To prevent this, it is necessary to maintain a certain pressure at the inlet of the pump, ensuring that the pressure there is higher than the saturated vapor pressure of the light hydrocarbons; otherwise, cavitation in the pump will occur.
It is mainly the saturated vapor pressure; the inlet pressure must not be lower than the saturated vapor pressure at that temperature, otherwise local vaporization will occur, leading to cavitation and preventing the pump from delivering fluid.
So that’s what it means. Thank you to everyone above for the explanations.
I would also like to ask how to ensure the inlet static head during the actual operation of the system.
It is mainly to prevent cavitation caused by too low pressure; liquefied gas has a high saturated vapor pressure and a low boiling point
So how is the static pressure at the pump inlet calculated?