Longer pump life at a Canadian wastewater treatment plant leads to a broader water quality project.
09/19/2014
Hamilton, Ontario, is one of Canada’s major metropolitan cities. The area’s wastewater treatment plants serve more than 500,000 Hamilton residents and the surrounding towns of Dundas, Ancaster, Water Down, Glanbrook and the former city of Stoney Creek. The treatment plants handle large volumes of sanitary and combined wastewater sewage, placing sizable demands on the pumping equipment.
Plant Details
Woodward Avenue Wastewater Treatment Plant began operations in 1964 and currently processes an average of 108 million gallons (409 million liters) per day. At peak capacity, the plant handles more than 158 million gallons (600 million liters) per day. The facility’s equipment paid a heavy toll to meet its processing demands. The highly abrasive nature of the water and sludge had heavily damaged the nitrile stators in the plant’s progressing cavity pumps. When fitted with an appropriate stator, a progressing cavity pump is ideally suited to handle sewage. The progressing cavity action transfers pumped media smoothly and continuously.The urethane stators in the plant’s progressing cavity pumps outlasted their original nitrile predecessors by more than 10 times. (Images courtesy of National Oilwell Varco)
However, Woodward Avenue’s corrosive sludge significantly reduced the working life cycles for the plant’s stators. Maintaining and replacing the stator increasingly cost the plant time and money. Finding an alternative solution quickly became a priority.
Protecting the Local Environment
The reliable treatment of Hamilton’s wastewater plays a vital role in maintaining the quality of the surrounding area, particularly Hamilton Harbor and its ecosystem. Windermere Basin, which is located on the mouth of Red Hill Creek at the eastern end of Hamilton Harbor, has been significantly affected by human activity within the ecosystem. City authorities tested an alternative stator solution that would withstand the rigors of their sludge treatment. Careful analysis of the sludge characteristics, flow patterns and operational demands of the treatment plant determined the correct elastomer for the new high-performance stator. A recently developed elastomer expanded the stator’s reliability and working life, cutting maintenance time and costs at the Hamilton plant.Pump failures from prolonged contact with the highly abrasive sludge pushed city officials toward the development of a new urethane stator.