How to Clean Centrifugal Pump Parts the Right Way

Centrifugal pump cleaning is an essential step in its repair and maintenance to ensure the high efficiency and durability of the equipment. The technician must account for several factors when cleaning this equipment, such as corrosion, clogging, operating temperature, leakage, etc., to ensure the highest standard to identify, solve, and prevent problems in its operation. This article explores some steps for cleaning centrifugal pump parts the right way.

Centrifugal Pump Cleaning Principles: The Basics

Centrifugal pump cleaning includes three primary phases: pre-identification cleaning, pre-assembly cleaning, and painting/bonding parts cleaning. It is noteworthy that technicians meet the highest cleaning requirements on electroplating and adhesive parts to avoid coating/bonding failure and ensure high cleaning quality and equipment durability. Moreover, technicians must ensure that their cleaning methods meet specific basic requirements when cleaning centrifugal pump parts. These requirements border on ensuring adequate cleanliness, avoiding and eliminating corrosion, and meeting high safety standards.

The differences in centrifugal pump parts require technicians to prioritize one over the other. For instance, technicians must prioritize fit, dynamic fit, and precision fit equipment parts over non-fit, static fit, and non-precision ones. This will ensure they meet higher cleaning requirements. Moreover, the selected cleaning agents and methods must adequately align with the cleaning requirements and qualities. Due to the adverse effects of corrosion, technicians must also consider utilizing antirust cleaning agents and other antitrust measures. Finally, safety is essential to the entire cleaning operation. Thus, technicians must employ cleaning methods and agents that are unharmful to humans and the environment.

How to Clean Pump Impellers

Centrifugal pumps require cleaning to eliminate oil spillages and blockages that may graduate in faults and equipment malfunction. In cleaning pump impellers, technicians disassemble the pump part, cleaning it in line with mechanical part cleaning principles and testing the pump after cleaning. 

Disassembling the Impeller

Measuring and recording the rotor axial and radial runout is the initial step for disassembling the impeller. This measurement aids the technician in identifying jitters at specific points. Secondly, the technician can remove the impeller back to remove the impeller and check for seizure or slippage phenomenon and ascertain the need for repair or replacement.

Cleaning the Impeller

Technicians can scrape off accumulated scales and rusts from the inner and outer surfaces of the centrifugal pump impeller, clean them, and blow them off with water or compressed air. Moreover, the technician can wipe off the grease, rust, oil, and other debris from several parts of the pump, such as joint surfaces, water seal pipe, bushes, seal ring, and ball bearings. Technicians must meet the highest cleanliness requirements when cleaning the impeller.

Testing the Centrifugal Pump

Technicians must protect each cleaned part, including the impeller, with oil and assemble them in the centrifugal pump. After further inspection of the assembly to ensure tight fitting of each anchor bolt, technicians must also provide adequate lubrication of each part. These professionals must also ensure efficient cooling with coolants, correct motor rotation, sufficient water in the pump, and optimum pump speed in line with design requirements to test the equipment.

Additional Cleaning Steps

Some other additional centrifugal pump cleaning steps include:

• Checking for leakages in the equipment to eliminate potential crystalization, poisoning, and corrosion
• Rinsing the pump body with water and cleaning with a clean rag
• Dredging the possible leakage parts of the mechanical seal of a double-suction pump to eliminate environmental hazards from potential water crystals and ensure the normal functioning of the equipment
• Inspecting the pump base and ensuring it is free from water, dirt, soil, grease, and other foreign particles.
• Ridding other parts of the pump, such as the oil cup, pressure gauge, pump nameplate, oil sight glass, and cooling water pipe sight glass of water and dirt to improve equipment inspection and observation
• Avoiding the direct washing of the motor part with water
• Cleaning the motor part and steering of the motor with a dry rag
• Avoiding the use of high cotton wool-based cloth strips to scrub rotating parts of the equipment
• Prioritizing the use of gloves when cleaning the equipment

PumpWorks Understands Pump Cleaning & Maintenance Procedures

PumpWorks is a leading pump manufacturer that offers trustworthy engineering solutions to all your centrifugal pump needs. Our advanced expertise is ideal for meeting consumer and industry standards in cleaning centrifugal and other types of pumps.

Contact us today for more information on how to clean water pumps and other services we offer.