Humble Pumping Stations and Their Importance in Our Day to Day Lives

0
522

img prefab 04One more perfect example of places that not many folks know about of and yet something which are crucial to our everyday lives. If they all stopped working, what do you think would happen? So what’s there to know?

Pumping stations are buildings that contain pumps or other like equipment that have been specially designed to move water and other liquids from one A to B.

  • Typically known as “pump stations” they are sometimes called “lift stations”.
  • The special type of machinery that you will find inside of a pumping station will differ and depend on its exact function, and on what type sort of liquid it is that needs pumping.

For example, different types of pumps will be needed at a sewage farm’s pumping station which handles sludge and slurry, than one that is used at a water plant’s pumping station.

Hard to Consider a World without Them

Nearly all pumping stations are in use as vital parts of the public water supply system, that pumps water from reservoirs, to large water plants and then into our homes via a huge system of pipes.

  • Other pumping stations, transport materials such as domestic sludge, liquid industrial waste, and agricultural slurry.

Pumping stations also manage the water supply of places like canals, and pump water up difficult terrains, giving irrigation to farming land, and also drain water from low-lying land.

Types of Pump and Their Usage

The pumps being used in these stations are of two main design types.

Those are rotodynamic pumps and positive displacement pumps, and they are classified based upon the mechanism which they use to transport fluids.

  • Rotodynamic pumps work by applying pressure to a column of liquid to increase the volume at which fluid moves through a pipe.
  • Whereas the rotodynamic kind of pump uses a rotor to apply pressure to a liquid.

These pumps are sometimes known as “centrifugal pumps, and can be put to use in a sewage pump station, because they can allow for the pumping of thick slurries.

  • Centrifugal pumps are also employed to pump water to agricultural irrigation systems.
  • One more kind of pump known as a “positive displacement pump” works by forcibly moving liquid from an intake pipe to an outlet one.
  • These are typically utilised to develop a steady flow.
  • Because of this, these pumps are usually part of the apparatus used for a standard water pump station that supplies clean water for the public water supply.

Technological Connection

These days, a modern pumping station is commonly monitored with the use of a computer called a “pump station manager”.

  • This technology provides the advantage of allowing a pump station to work constantly, without the need for staff all day long.

The pump station manager has an easy to operate interface which allows for even non-technical staff to carry out operations at the station.

Next time you turn that tap on, think about where that water is coming from!