Water pumps can come in very useful when you need to dewater an area or when you need to draw water from one location and transfer it to another. They are especially useful during a flood or when going camping. But how can an average Joe tell apart one water pump from another? When it comes to function, all water pumps are the same so they should be evaluated based on performance, downtime and durability. What’s more, having a good understanding of water pumps can come in very handy when you need to operate one. There are two main water pump types: centrifugal pumps and positive displacement water pumps. Although both of them serve the same purpose, which is to move water from point A to point B, there’s a difference regarding which type (or subtype) one is to rely on depending on what needs to be done with it.
Centrifugal Water Pumps
Centrifugal water pumps use a rotating impeller to transfer the water into the pump and to pressurize the discharge flow. There are three different types of centrifugal water pumps: standard, trash and submersible water pumps. Centrifugal pumps are great because you can pump any liquid with them, even liquids with low viscosity as they do a great job with thin fluids and can handle high flow rate very nicely. If you are looking to buy water pump of this type, you will be able to use this one to pump water in places where no suction lift is required. Also, it can be used as a way to boost pressure from the intake line or as a continuous pressure source.
Positive Displacement Pumps
The positive displacement model delivers a fixed amount of flow through the mechanical construction and expansion of a flexible diaphragm. These types of pumps are ideal for many industries that need to manage high viscosity liquids. These models of pumps are recommended to be used for low flow and high pressure combination. Positive displacement pumps work very efficiently – this is because of the fact that they remove air from all the lines. If you are looking to buy water pump that allows you to pump high viscosity liquids, positive displacement pumps can handle this job great. But as with anything, there are some drawbacks to this water pump as well, for example these types of pumps require the clearance between the rotating pump and the outer edge to be very close. This causes the rotations to be very slow, otherwise certain liquids might erode the pump.