The Most Efficient Pump: Students Compete to See Who Can Come Up with the Best Design

Pump Competition—to outsiders, this term might sound a bit unusual, but that certainly isn’t the case for the competition participants. They—all students in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering—faced the demanding task of designing a hydraulic component for a centrifugal pump so that it would operate as efficiently as possible in the competition. No easy challenge.

Centrifugal pumps are an integral part of our everyday lives. They are indispensable and yet usually invisible. We take it for granted that drinking water and utility water come out of the faucet—just as we do the disposal of wastewater. In both cases, centrifugal pumps provide these everyday conveniences.

But they’re not just used in drinking water supply. Heating systems, the chemical, mining, and food industries, as well as numerous other sectors, also use centrifugal pumps—in a wide variety of applications that can’t all be listed here. Countless smaller centrifugal pumps are also found in passenger and commercial vehicles, for example in the form of coolant pumps.

Efficiency is particularly important in the context of the energy transition—because centrifugal pumps are among the largest consumers of electricity.

In the pump competition, students from the FB-MV at RPTU took on this challenge: A so-called impeller—a rotating component of the centrifugal pump—was to be designed to achieve the highest possible efficiency. Efficiency describes the ratio of benefit to effort. The input corresponds to the power required to drive the centrifugal pump; the output is the power transferred to the water.

The students used software developed at the SAM Chair to design their impeller—that is, to determine its geometric dimensions. They then designed the impeller in 3D CAD software and manufactured it from plastic using 3D printing. The finished impellers were installed in a test pump at the SAM Chair to experimentally determine their efficiency.

The project received financial support from the Berdelle-Hilge Foundation. Professor Kilsch—chairman of the Berdelle-Hilge Foundation—oversaw the competition, monitored its implementation, and provided the prizes.

First prize—a check for 500 euros—went to Roman Hügel. With his impeller, the centrifugal pump achieved an efficiency of over 70 percent. Second place—with a prize of 300 euros—went to Arved Hammer, whose impeller also achieved an efficiency of over 70 percent. Third place went to Aleksej Feil, whose impeller achieved an efficiency of over 60 percent. He was delighted to receive 100 euros in prize money.