Flowserve

At Arnage (Sarthe), Flowserve can access the largest plant in mainland France dedicated to producing pumps for all types of industries. Not only can the firm boast exhaustive expertise in pump technology, Flowserve is also present on the turbine pump market, operating in pump or electrical generator mode. «Turbine pumps offer an alternative to turbines. They are more cost effective and therefore more profitable, however, they are only suitable for some types of site, and particularly need an adequate waterfall height» explained Alice Dubois, manager of the Flowserve New industrial pumps service. A water pumping station in use in Southern France has the ideal conditions. On this basis, Flowserve designed and manufactured the appropriate pump turbine before checking that the 75 kW equipment met specifications.

Ready for use 

Cetim was entrusted with assessing the performance of the equipment, and adapted its test unit to integrate energy recovery and power measuring facilities. «We can access seven test platforms at our Arnage plant. We mainly use these platforms to test pumps. It would have proved slightly more complicated to reconfigure these facilities to test a turbine pump with a complex operational set-up. To save time, we decided to entrust this operation to Cetim with whom we have worked in partnership for many years and who hold the necessary expertise and technical resources» explained Alice Dubois. The results of the tests, carried out in the presence of a Suez representative, were totally conclusive after less than one day. The turbine pump displays the expected behavior and performances for the service.