The current situation and overall trend of the world's pump industry technology development

The technological development of pumps, like that of other industries, is driven by market demand. Nowadays, history has entered the 21st century. Against the backdrop of the huge demand generated by the high-tech development in fields such as environmental protection and electronics, as well as the sustainable development of the world, it has brought about rapid technological changes and development in many industries or fields, including the pump industry.

The main technological development trends of pumps in recent years are as follows:

1. Product diversification

The vitality of a product lies in the demand of the market. Today's market demands precisely require each to have its own distinctive features and characteristics to stand out from the rest. It is precisely this that has led to the trend of diversification in pump products. Its diversity is mainly reflected in several aspects such as the variety of media conveyed by the pump, the differences in product structure and the variations in operational requirements.

From the perspective of the diversity of the conveyed medium, the earliest pump's conveyed object was a single water and other flowing liquids, gases or slurries. Now, it can convey solid-liquid mixtures, gas-liquid mixtures, solid-liquid-gas mixtures, and even live objects such as potatoes and fish. Different conveying objects have different requirements for the internal structure of the pump.

In addition to the different structural requirements of the pump for the conveyed objects, new demands are put forward for the internal or external structure of the pump in terms of its installation form, pipeline layout form, maintenance and repair, etc. Meanwhile, each manufacturer has incorporated their own corporate concepts into the structural design, further enhancing the diversity of the pump structure.

Based on the overall background of sustainable development and environmental protection, the operating environment of pumps has put forward numerous requirements for pump design, such as reducing leakage, lowering noise and vibration, increasing reliability, and extending service life, etc. All these have different focuses on pump design or several focuses need to be considered in parallel, which will inevitably lead to the diversified forms of pumps.

2. Standardization and modularization of products

While products are diversifying, pumps, as general-purpose products, still have a huge overall volume. In the market, apart from technical competition, price competition among products, especially among general products, is an inevitable trend. Under the trend of product diversification, to achieve a competitive advantage in product price, it is necessary to enhance the standardization degree of product components and realize the modularization of product components. After numerous components are modularized, the diversification of products can be achieved by combining different modules or changing the characteristics of individual parts. At the same time, only when the standardization degree of components is improved can it be possible to actually carry out large-scale production of components based on product diversification, in order to reduce the production cost of products and form a price competitive advantage for products. It can also further shorten the delivery cycle of products on the basis of product diversification.

3. Enhancing the intrinsic characteristics of the pump and pursuing its external characteristics

The so-called intrinsic characteristics of a pump refer to the inherent features of the product, including product performance, component quality, overall assembly quality of the machine, appearance quality, etc., or simply called quality. At this point, it is the aspect that many pump manufacturing companies are currently focusing on and striving to improve and enhance. In fact, we can find that many products that pass the factory inspection often fail to meet the factory inspection results after being sent to the user units for operation, and problems such as overloading, increased noise, failure to meet usage requirements or reduced lifespan occur. The operating point or operating characteristics of the pump in practice are called the external characteristics or system characteristics of the pump.

When technicians are designing products, they often put in a lot of effort to increase the efficiency of a certain product by one percent. However, if the pump operation deviates from the designed high-efficiency point, the actual operating efficiency will decrease by far more than one percent. Nowadays, pump manufacturing companies simultaneously provide users with control equipment including frequency conversion and complete sets of equipment. In fact, they have already ventured into the pursuit of the external characteristics of pumps. On this basis, if we further focus on the centralized control system of the pump and improve the operational efficiency of the entire pump and pump station, we will take the pursuit of the external characteristics of the pump to a higher level.

4. Further development of mechatronics

Just as the development of science and technology, at present, interdisciplinary and marginal disciplines in the field of science and technology are becoming increasingly rich, and cross-disciplinary joint research is a very common thing. The technological development of pump products is no exception. Take shielded pumps as an example. To eliminate the shaft seal problem of the pump, it is necessary to start from the motor structure. It is impossible to achieve this by merely focusing on the pump itself. To solve the noise problem of the pump, in addition to addressing the flow state and vibration of the pump, it is also necessary to solve the noise of the motor fan blades and the electromagnetic field noise. To enhance the reliability of submersible pumps, measures such as leakage protection and overload protection must be installed inside the submersible motor. To enhance the operational efficiency of pumps, it is necessary to rely on the application of control technology and so on. All these indicate that to develop the technical level of pumps, it is necessary to start simultaneously from aspects such as the supporting motors and control technologies, make comprehensive considerations, and maximize the overall level of mechatronics.

5. Accelerated utilization of new materials and new processes

Over the past decade or so, the application of new materials and new processes has been a major factor driving the development of pump technology. The materials used for pumps, ranging from cast iron to special metal alloys, from typical non-metallic materials such as rubber products and ceramics to engineering plastics, have all played a prominent role in addressing the environmental issues of corrosion resistance, wear resistance, and high-temperature resistance of pumps. At the same time, the application of new processes enables new materials to be better utilized in the components of the pump and even throughout the entire pump. For instance, some foreign manufacturers have designed and launched pumps that are entirely made of engineering plastics. It is no less strong than pumps made of common metal materials and even better in terms of corrosion and wear resistance. For instance, by applying new surface coating and surface treatment technologies, the problems of corrosion resistance and wear resistance of pumps can also be solved. The further development of new materials and the in-depth application of new processes will lead to more extensive use in the field of pumps.

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