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Efficiency Characteristics of
Centrifugal Pumps

Guide prepared by the EU SAVE Pump Study Group (Contractor: ETSU, AEAT PLC, (United
Kingdom); Participants: CETIM (France), David T. Reeves (United Kingdom), NESA (Denmark),
Technical University Darmstadt (Germany)

This section gives a quick overview of the fundamentals of choosing and using a pump for
best efficiency. This is not an exhaustive guide, but is designed to be just sufficient for non-
technical personnel to get a better understanding of the technical background to this work.
Other publications (such as the Enersave guide) are recommended as giving much fuller
explanations. The following applies to most types of centrifugal pumps only.

Part load characteristics of pumps

Pumps are always defined by the basic Pump characteristics below (figure A3.1). They show
the relationship between head, power and efficiency against flow. It is important to see just
how "peaky" the efficiency might be, showing that running at a duty (head and/or flow) below
rated duty is likely to lead to a significant reduction in pump efficiency. The Best Efficiency
Point (BEP) of a pump is ideally at the rated duty point.

Figure (A3.1) – Centrifugal pump characteristics

Running at reduced flow, or indeed above rated flow, will accelerate pump wear and might
give operational problems, (figure A3.2).

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Figure (A3.2) – Onset of adverse effects when operating a pump away from its peak
efficiency flow

In practice pumps are usually found to be over-rated for the duty, since either the demand
varies, and/or the system designer has been prudent and over-sized the system. This problem
is generally over-come by throttling the flow with a valve. But deliberately restricting the
system flow is far inferior to better matching of the pump to the actual system requirements.
This is because it often causes additional wear, (figure A3.2), and reduces system efficiency,
(figure A3.3).

Figure (A3.3) – Illustration of the effect on efficiency of throttling a pump

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One pump - different duties

Reducing the diameter of the impeller will make an existing pump run more efficiently at a
lower flow without throttling, (figure A3.4). Manufacturers commonly offer the same pump
housing (volute) with a range of impeller diameters because of this. Manufacturers may also
offer different styles of impeller to cope with different duties.

Figure (A3.4) – Pump characteristics showing various impeller diameters

Often a manufacturer will offer the same pump with different motor options to allow the one
pump to be used over a much wider range of duties. For instance, changing from the most
common 4-pole motor to a faster 2-pole motor will enable the same pump to deliver twice as
much peak flow and 4 times the head. (The effect of running a pump with 4 and 2 pole
motors is the same as what happens when running at 50% and 100% speeds as shown in
figure A3.5).

Variable Speed Drives allow a pump to operate efficiently over a wide range of speeds and
hence duties, and so are very good for saving energy, (figure A3.5). They are particularly
useful in systems where there is a wide variation in demanded flow.

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Figure (A3.5) – Effect of speed reduction on pump characteristics

What this all means is that the same basic pump can serve different duties depending on both
the diameter of impeller fitted and the speed of the motor chosen. The power consumption
will vary with these parameters and with other factors such as viscosity. It is therefore not
useful, and indeed would be very misleading, to characterise pumpsets by power rating. The
size of motor required therefore needs to be determined for each application.

Selecting a pump
When selecting a pump, a manufacturer will use "tombstone" curves, which show their ranges
of pumps to cover a range of duties (figure (A3.6). Ideally, the duty you want will be roughly
20% below the maximum flow shown on the tombstone, which corresponds to the BEP of the
selected pump (each tombstone is built up from the individual pump curves in figure A3.4).
But for economic reasons they have to restrict the number of pumps that they offer. This
means that even a manufacturer of particularly efficient pumps may lose out, when quoting
efficiencies in competition with less efficient pumps whose BEP just happens to be nearer the
requested performance. The worked example in the box makes this clearer.

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Figure (A3.6) – “Tombstone” curves for the selection of pumps by duty.

In addition, pumps wear over time (figure A3.7), but their efficiency can be maintained by
refurbishment figure (A3.8).

Figure (A3.7) – Effect of wear on pump characteristics

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Figure (A3.8) – Average wear trends for maintained and unmaintained pumps

Worked example
This worked example shows the key issues that arise when selecting a pump on the basis of
efficiency.

BEP (B)

BEP (A) = 86%

= 82% 83%
84 80%

Desired (Quoted) 82 Pump B

Duty Point
80%

Actual (Installed) 77%

Duty Point Pump A
Head

Pump Efficiency Pump A Pump B

Flow
Peak (BEP) 82% 86%
At desired (quoted) duty point 81.5% 80%
At actual (installed) duty point 79% <77%

A User requests quotes for a pump at a particular Desired duty. Manufacturers A and B offer
the pumps shown, which are the best that they can offer from the ranges that they have.
(These two pumps are excerpts from the two manufacturers’ ranges of the type shown in
figure A3.6).

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There are two important points:

While pump B has a higher BEP, at the desired duty, pump A actually has a higher efficiency
than pump B.

Over-specifying the duty means that at the actual installed duty, the efficiency of the pump
will be considerably less than quoted. (In this particular case it would be better to use a
reduced diameter impeller, or perhaps a quite different pump to either of those quoted for.)

Key points
· Pump efficiency can decrease significantly when the pump is operating away from the
designed Best Efficiency Point. Over-specifying the duty when specifying a pump will
therefore mean much increased energy costs.
· Pumps are not made to standard duties, which makes comparing efficiencies less simple
than with products that are made to standard duties, (such as motors).
· A manufacturer of pumps with a high design (BEP) efficiency may often lose out to
another manufacturers of a less efficient (BEP) pump, depending on where the actual duty
point requested lies within the performance curves of the pumps.
· The same pump will usually be offered with different impellers to give good performance
at lower duties.
· The same pump will often be offered with different speed motors to allow it to cover a
much wider range of duties.
· Pump performance and efficiency deteriorates over time.
· Power consumption of a particular pump, and hence rating of motor, is determined by the
application.