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Water Management Services
We can provide water management, hydrostatic testing, flow-line winterization, well repair, equipment rentals, hot shot services and the fuelling and monitoring of equipment.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Pumping water, especially large volumes over long distances, is a science and an art that involves atmospheric pressure, volume and flow calculations, something called friction loss and much more besides. To get the right pump – or series of pumps – for the job, you have to take all these things into account. It’s a science that has been at the heart of Ketek’s skillset from the beginning, and it’s a skill we are proud of and that we continuously strive to improve on.
Pumps work in two ways. When a pump is turned on it creates a vacuum. Nature, which abhors a vacuum, searches for a way to fill it. If the pump is connected to a suction hose and the other end of that hose is immersed in water, the weight of the atmosphere pushing down on the surface of the water will force it into the hose and up to the pump. The impeller in the pump will then push the water further along the discharge hose.
Friction loss is the loss of pressure or “head” that occurs in a pipe because of the water’s viscosity near the surface of the pipe. As the water tumbles and churns through the pipe, it encounters resistance both from other water molecules and from the sides of the pipe, which might be relatively rough.
Head is not quite the same as pressure (PSI), although the two are related. Head is the height to which a pump can raise the water. It takes into account suction conditions and friction loss and ultimately determines the pump’s capacity to do the job. If you have to pump water up 30 feet and your pump doesn’t have at least 30 feet of head, it won’t work.
When it comes to lifting water using atmospheric pressure, the size of the pipe doesn’t matter. A larger pipe holds more water and more weight, true, but the force pushing the water up the cylinder has nothing to do with the volume of water in the pipe.