Pump station and method of manufacturing the same

Abstract: A pump housing, particularly meant for pumps of high yield and low lift, has a suction casing, a suction mouth and a volute arranged in the concrete substructure of a pump station. The volute is made by assembling thin-walled mould wall parts, mounting them in place, and thereafter casting fresh concrete around the resulting mould wall, thereby ensuring that reinforcing elements of the mould wall are connected with reinforcing elements of the concrete to be cast. The suction casing and suction mouth are preferably made in the same way. Thus, the use of complicated casings for casting concrete elements can be avoided.

Description: This invention relates to a pump station comprising a pump housing, particularly for a pump of high yield, said pump housing comprising a suction casing, a suction mouth and a volute of concrete arranged in a concrete substructure of said pump station. Such a pump station is known in the art, e.g. from US-A-1107591, and is provided with pumps of high yield and relatively low lift, for example, condenser cooling water circulation pumps, main docks pumps, irrigation and draining pumps, crude water take-up pumps for drinking water supplies and effluent outlet pumps in sewage purification plants. Such a pump station has the advantage that its pump is corrosion resistant. However, the mould required for casting the concrete is complicated and expensive due to the complicated form of the volute and can be used only once. Moreover, the manufacture of the casing and the removal thereof after cure of the concrete are time-consuming operations. This invention has for its object to provide a pump station with a concrete pump housing, which is free of said disadvantages. According to the invention this is achieved by the characterizing features of claim 1. It is noted that from US-A-1504737 a pump housing is known having a spiral inlet conduit or a volute, which comprises a metal wall embedded in concrete of a substructure. This housing is not corrosion-resistant or would be expensive when it had te be made from corrosion-resistant metal. The Ritz-brochure 501 W10-11/120 discloses a screw pump incorporating a plurality of identical parts of an open channel. It does not teach that the pump pressure or a centrifugal pump could be better counteracted by means of a thin walled inner wall, surrounded from all sides by an outer wall in order to prevent deformation and in order to maintain a centrifugal pump watertight. The invention further provides use of mould wall parts for manufacturing the pump station of the invention, which is characterized in that the mould wall parts comprise parts of a prefabricated thin-walled volute mould wall of reinforced concrete. The dimensions and the weight of the mould wall parts are determined by the requirements of transportability and ease of handling during mounting operations. Therefore, the largest width should preferably not exceed 2.50 metres and the weight should not be more than 5000 kg a piece. The wall thickness of the mould wall parts is such that the mould wall can resist the pressure of the concrete to be cast for completion of the concrete construction. The order of magnitude of the wall thickness may be about 10 cm. Such mould wall parts can be simply manufactured with the aid of re-usable moulds in a manner known per se in concrete constructions. In pump stations comprising a plurality of identical pumps the expensive and time-consuming manufacture of casings is thus avoided and, in addition, an identical and accurate design of the pump housings is ensured, which is particularly important for the hydraulic properties of the pumps. A further advantage resides in fact that the mould wall parts. which will contact the medium to be pumped with their inner sides, can be made from high-quality concrete, whereas the remainder of the concrete construction may be of a different quality. The invention further provides a method for the manufacture of a pump station, as claimed in claims 7-9 and as will be apparent from the following description. The invention will now be described in more detail with reference to the drawings which are given by way of example and should not be considered to be limitative for the various embodiments of a pump housing construction in accordance with the invention. The drawings show in: Figures 1 and 2 vertical and a horizontal sectional view respectively of a pump station comprising two pump housings embodying the invention, Figure 3 is a vertical sectional view of a pump and a pump housing of Figure 1, Figures 4 and 5 a perspective plan view and a bottom view respectively of a volute mould wall of the pump housing of Figure 1, Figure 6 a fragmentary, perspective plan view of a suction mouth mould wall of a pump housing of Fig. 1, Figure 7 on an enlarged scale tie means for interconnecting mould wall parts in the direction of arrow VII in Figure 4, and Figure 8 a perspective view of a suction casing mould wall of a pump housing of Figure 1. The pump station 1 of Figures 1 and 2 has a concrete substructure 2 comprising two identical pump housings 3 for pumps 4. This pump station 1, for example of a draining mill, comprises pumps 4 of large dimensions having a high yield with a low lift. Each pump 4 has a pump housing 3 comprising a suction casing 5, a suction mouth 6, a volute 7 and an effluent channel 8. A rotating impeller 9 is mounted in the pump housing by means of a bearing 10. The impeller 9 is driven by a motor 12 via driving gear 11. In the manufacture of the pump housing 3, the volute 7, the suction mouth 6 and the suction casing 5 are prefabricated in parts. Mould wall parts defining the space traversed by the fluid and serving, in addition, as lost casing elements are prefabricated first and are then assembled and mounted in place. Thereupon they are embedded in the concrete 13 of the substructure 2, after ensuring that reinforcing elements 14 of the mould walls are connected with reinforcing elements 15 of the remaining substructure 2. The following mould wall parts are shown; a volute mould wall 16 in Figures 4 and 5, a suction mouth wall 17 in Figure 6, and a suction casing mould wall 18 in Figure 8. The volute mould wall 16 has internally the shape of a volute, a tongue 19 thereof being lined with a metal tongue element 20. The volute has furthermore an effluent piece 21. In a different embodiment other metal parts such as a foundation cover may be embedded. The volute mould wall 16 comprises two mould wall parts 22 and 23, which are readily transportable, for example, along the road, and for this purpose they have a width a of 2.5 metres or less. Moreover the weight of these mould wall parts 22 and 23 does not exceed 5000 kg so that they can still be handled by simple lift and transport means. The wall thickness b of the mould wall parts 22 and 23 is limited to, for example, 10 cm, which is sufficient to resist the pressure of the concrete 13 of the substructure 2 to be cast after the volute mould wall 16 has been mounted. The suction mouth mould wall 17 and the suction casing mould wall 18 each comprise two mould wall parts 24, 25 and 26, 27 respectively. The mould wall parts 22. 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 are interconnected in pairs, i.e. pulled one against the other with the aid of tie means 28 (figure 7) formed by steel brackets 29 and 30 welded to reinforcing elements 14 of the mould wall parts and drawn towards one another by means of a bolt 31 and a nut 32. The volute mould wall 16, the suction mouth mould wall 17 and the suction casing mould wall 18 are all assembled by means of such tie means. Reinforcing elements 14 projecting out of the concrete 33 of the mould wall parts 22 to 27 are connected with reinforcing elements 15 for the concrete 13 of the concrete substructure 2. Thereupon, concrete 13 is cast around the mould wall parts 22 to 27 to complete the concrete substructure 2. The location of the partitions in the mould walls is arbitrary both in a horizontal and in a vertical plane. Therefore, such partitions may be different from those shown herein.

Claims: A pump station (1) comprising a pump housing (3), particularly for a pump (4) of high yield, said pump housing comprising a suction casing (5), a suction mouth (6) and a volute (7) of concrete arranged in a concrete substructure (2) of said pump station (1), characterized in that the pump housing (3) comprises prefabricated, thin walled mould walls of reinforced concrete, said walls including a volute mould wall and comprising a plurality of parts all embedded in the concrete (13) of the substructure (2) and interconnected by means of the means, said concrete of the substructure (2) being reinforced and extending up to a higher level than the prefabricated mould walls in order to surround the latter completely. Use of mould wall parts (22 to 27) for manufacturing the pump station (1) as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that the mould wall parts comprise parts of a prefabricated thin-walled volute mould wall (16) of reinforced concrete. Use of mould wall parts (22 to 27) as claimed in claim 2, characterized in that their wall thickness is limited to a value which is sufficient to withstand the pressure of the concrete (13) of the substructure (2) to be cast after assembling and mounting the mould wall (16, 17, 18). Use of mould wall parts (22 to 27) as claimed in claim 3, characterized in that the wall thickness of the mould wall parts (22 to 27) is about 10 cm. Use of mould wall parts (22 to 27) as claimed in claim 2, 3 or 4, characterized in that the dimensions of the mould wall parts (22 to 27) are determined by requirements of transportability and ease of handling during mounding operations. Use of mould wall parts (22 to 27) of the mould wall (16, 17, 18) as claimed in claim 5, characterized in that their largest width is about 250 cm and their weight does not exceed about 5000 kg. A method of manufacturing a pump station (1) as claimed in claim 1, said pump station comprising a pump housing (3), particularly for a pump (4) of high yield, in which a suction casing (5), a suction mouth (6) and a volute (7) are arranged in the concrete substructure (2) of said pump station (1), characterized by the following steps: prefabricating thin walled mould walls of reinforced concrete, said walls including a volute mould wall and comprising a plurality of parts, mounting said mould walls in place, interconnecting said plurality of parts and connecting reinforcing elements (14) of the volute mould wall (16) with reinforcing elements (15) of the concrete (13) to be subsequently cast in the concrete substructure (2) of the pump station (1), and embedding the mould walls in concrete (13) for the substructure by pouring in concrete (13) up to a higher level than the prefabricated mould walls in order to surround the latter completely and allowing it to set. A method as claimed in claim 7, characterized by the additional steps of: connecting reinforcing elements (14) of a suction mouth wall (17) with reinforcing elements (15) of the concrete (13) to be subsequently cast in the concrete substructure (2) of the pump station (1). A method as claimed in claim 8, characterized by the additional steps of: connecting reinforcing elements (14) of a suction casing wall (18) with reinforcing elements (15) of the concrete (13) to be subsequently cast in the concrete substructure (2) of the pump station (1).

Inventors: DE VRIES GERRIT, DE VRIES, GERRIT
Applicants: STORK POMPEN, STORK POMPEN B.V.
Application year: 1983
Main classification: F04D29
IPC codes: F04D29