Pumpsquare - Difference Between Positive Displacement Pumps and Centrifugal Pumps?

Difference Between Positive Displacement Pumps and Centrifugal Pumps?

When in September 2009, I attended a maintenance and reliability conference on pumps in Atlanta. This is the first conference I have attended on pumps and I had a really good learning experience. I would like to thank Dr. Lev Nelik for the same.

In the first session of the conference, after the opening ceremony, Dr. Nelik asked the attendees for the difference between Positive Displacement Pumps and Centrifugal Pumps. There were various answers coming up. But Dr. Nelik explained with an example. This is one of the best and simple way to visualize it and I thought of sharing it with you.

It goes like this:

“Think of a task of getting a tennis balls to the balcony of the third floor from the ground. One way of doing the task is to throw the balls by hand one after the other and the other one is to put all the balls in the bucket and then take the bucket to the third floor using the stairs or lift. Former way of doing the task is the same principle what the centrifugal pump does and the later one described is how the positive displacement pump does the work.