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Corresponding Author

Hosien, M.

Subject Area

Mechanical Power Engineering

Article Type

Original Study

Abstract

Air-lift pump is a type of deep wells pumps. Sometimes, it can be used for removing water from mines or to pump slurry of sand and water or other solutions. The performance of air-lift pumps depends mainly on the operational parameters such as air volumetric flux, nature of lifted water and solid. The main objective of the present work is to study theoretically the air-lift pump performance under variety of operational parameters. A mathematical model simulating the performance of air-lift pump under various operational parameters was developed. A computer program was developed to solve the governing equation. The model results were compared with available published data for validation. There was a good agreement between the present results and the published data. The effects of operational parameters on the air-lift pump performance are predicated and plotted against the water volumetric flux and pump efficiency. The results showed that the water volumetric flux and pump efficiency increased gradually reaching a maximum value some where between 1 to 4 m/s, then slightly decrease with increasing the air volumetric flux. The water volumetric flux and pump efficiency decrease linearly with increasing the solid particles volumetric flux. The predicted results show that the solid particles density and diameter had slight effects on the pump performance.

Keywords

Air-lift pump; solid particles; Submergence ratio; Slug flow; Churn flow; - Bubbly flow; Three-phase flow

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