Mobile app reveals pump efficiency
13 Jul 2015
To help plant operators increase productivity and transparency as well as improve competitiveness across the entire life cycle, pump manufacturer KSB has developed an app for smart phones and tablets that can determine the efficiency of fixed-speed pumps in 20 seconds.
The KSB Sonolyzer app - which is available via the App Store and Google Play - is based on an algorithm that has been integrated in PumpMeter units for five years now.
The app does not require knowledge of the individual characteristic curve nor any additional technical data of the pump.
What’s more, it can also be used with pumps from other manufacturers.
Users can utilise the app to determine the load at which each centrifugal pump driven by a fixed-speed asynchronous motor is being operated.
When the measurement routine starts, the microphone built into the smart phone or tablet is used for approximately 20 seconds to record the noise emitted by the fan of the electric motor.
This noise spectrum is then filtered by the application to ascertain the exact speed of the pump set and determine the torque.
By correlating the performance data entered by the user with the hydraulic systems database, the app can conclude whether the pump is operating at part load and lets the user know if optimising the hydraulic system or the drive could save any energy.
The app can even be used in potentially explosive atmospheres if the smart phone or tablet PC has appropriate protection.
This, in turn, points to a considerable amount of energy saving potential that can be tapped by optimising existing pump installations.
The data serves statistical purposes and is only used to further develop and advance the analysis algorithms in the cloud application, which is accessed by the app.
