A full life cycle approach

How Trillium Flow Technologies serves the water market with pump solutions which support plants throughout their entire life cycle.

The impeller of a concrete volute pump.
The impeller of a concrete volute pump.

Trillium Flow Technologies leverages its innovative capabilities, extensive experience in the water sector, and a wide portfolio of pumps and services from established brands like Floway and Termomeccanica Pompe to assist plant EPC contractors, owners, and operators in enhancing overall plant efficiency, reliability, and sustainability. Adopting a full life cycle approach, Trillium provides support throughout all phases of a plant project, from design and construction to operation and maintenance, and life extension.

Pump retrofit

Trillium participated in the upgrade project of the lifting plant at the most important hydraulic junction in Southern Italy, which has a storage capacity of up to 200,000 cubic meters and a pumping capacity of 7,000 liters per second – making it one of the largest in Europe.

A lifting plant is crucial for integrated water services, including the supply and transport of drinking water, and the management of wastewater. The end user managing the water transport system launched the upgrade project to improve the performance and maintenance intervals of all of the plant’s existing pumps performing lift and booster services, ultimately aiming to enhance overall plant efficiency and reduce operating costs.

Through its Termomeccanica Pompe brand, the supplier of the original pumps, Trillium performed the retrofit of the pumps, transforming the outdated BB1-type design from the late 1970s into a newer, more efficient between bearing patented pump design called HSS. The retrofit program, involving more than 10 pumps, was executed over several years with timelines established with the customer to minimize plant disruptions. Each pump conversion, excluding preparatory engineering and procurement activities, took about 30 calendar days and comprised activities such as machining the body and cover, modifying supports for the bearing replacement, and adjusting the pump rotor. The new pump design achieved a 1.5% efficiency improvement and featured an enhanced seal and bearing configuration resulting in greater reliability and longer maintenance intervals. 

An HSS between bearing patented pump.

Pump supply

Trillium also took part in a project of a branch canal’s pumping station system, aimed at optimizing the use of a river basin and transforming an entire state from a desert into an irrigated agricultural area. At the time, this was the world’s largest project, featuring five pumping stations capable of moving 35 million cubic meters of water each day. The initiative aimed to irrigate 1,800,000 hectares of land and provide drinking water to over 132 major towns, as well as numerous villages.

Trillium supplied a total of 26 Termomeccanica Pompe concrete volute pumps for a pumping station system. The largest pumps had a capacity of 72,000 m³/h, a head of 16 m, and a power output of 4 MW. Both the discharge volute and the suction duct were made of concrete and were incorporated into the civil engineering works. To establish the concrete pouring method and various casting steps, Trillium collaborated closely with the project’s civil engineering team. The hydraulic performance of the pumps, which included the suction channel and discharge siphon, was validated through tests involving Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis and a reduced scale model of the pump. Extensive measurements were taken to assess the behavior of the impeller under cavitation conditions, and visual examinations of the flow fields on the impeller blades were conducted using stroboscopic techniques.

The study showed an increase in bubble length on the suction side of the impeller blade due to a reduction in the available Net Positive Suction Head (NPSH) at two different flow rates. As a result, particular attention was given to the geometry of the discharge siphon to minimize losses during normal operation and ensure proper priming during pump start-up.  

 A 3D render of a concrete volute pump.