For decades Belzona has quietly sold repair compounds and efficiency enhancing coatings to pump manufacturers such as Aurora, Goulds, and others.  These pump manufacturers use repair compounds to fair out porosity in castings of pump casings.  Additionally, when a newly manufactured pump fails to deliver a targeted efficiency, these manufacturers will coat the casing or the impeller or both with Belzona® 1341 (Supermetalglide) in order to bring the best efficiency point up to this target.  If these pump manufacturers know that Belzona® 1341 (Supermetalglide) can increase the wire-to-water efficiency of their pumps, why do they not use these coatings on each pump?  I have asked both technical and sales staff from several pump manufacturers exactly this question and the response I receive is the same each time although they would never publically repeat their response.  Pump OEMs would be willing to give away free pumps in order to assure themselves the replacement part revenue stream.  They know that in addition to increasing the efficiency of their pumps, Belzona® 1341 (Supermetalglide) also prevents them from corroding thus significantly extending their operating life.  This directly conflicts with the planned obsolesce built right into the pumps and cuts into their lucrative replacement part business.  In addition, this is just one more thing they must educate their customers about in order to justify the expense of the coating and for all these reasons, it is not in their best interest to coat new pumps.

Figure 1:  Almost no pump is so damaged that it cannot be completely repaired with Belzona.

If coatings are not in the best interest of the pump manufacturers then they clearly are in the best interest of pump users.  They allow lifecycles to be extended significantly and wire-to-water efficiencies to be increased 2-7% from new.  Badly damaged pumps can be rebuilt and their efficiencies increased 40% or more depending on how badly damaged they are.  It is not at all uncommon for a pump coating project to pay for itself in three months and in many states the project is eligible for a rebate from the utility company since they have pools of money set aside for funding energy efficiency projects.

In addition to efficiency enhancing coatings, Belzona also offers pump coatings which can tolerate extreme abrasion, cavitation, and chemical attack.  This allows us to repair and protect virtually any pump in a refinery which is operating below 400°F.  Why continue spending your precious time and money on repetitive repairs that merely buy time when the problem can be solved and sometimes for absolutely no cost?

Here are some case studies pertinent to this application:

KHIA VOL XXIV, NO 14

KHIA VOL XXV, NO 7

KHIA VOL XXIII, NO 120

KHIA VOL XXIII, NO 106

 
Chris Lucas 
clucas@rumfordgroup.com
937-435-4650
RumfordGroup.com