High-temperature applications for plunger pumps
This company designs and manufactures high-pressure plunger pumps (photo) and units for operating pressures up to 3,000 bars (43,500 psi), with driving powers up to 2,600 kW (3,500 h.p.). One area where such pumps are used is in petroleum refining. For example, various procedures can be used to process residual oil, which is accrued after refining heavy oil, bitumen or normal crude oil. It is then compressed to around 150–250 bars, mixed with H 2 and fed into the hydrogenation reactor at up to 450°C. This critical process uses pure H2, so system failure, particularly in the feed pumps, is not acceptable. Otherwise, extremely critical operating conditions may arise. As a result, redundant solutions with standby capacity for the pumps are usually used. When in use, each pump is also monitored with adapted instrumentation to detect possible faults early and react to them accordingly, so that hazardous situations do not occur. — Uraca GmbH & Co. KG, Bad Urach, Germany