The company is partnering with the UMass Water and Energy Technology Center to research the roles of energy, power and motor quality in industrial pumping. The research center will augment an ongoing project that the two teams have implemented to monitor and track energy usage of the pumps and wastewater treatment mixers deployed at the WET center and Town of Amherst Wastewater Treatment facility.
The pumping environment has dedicated research personnel and a fully instrumented pumping system that includes sensors to monitor motor power, pressure, flow and vibration, as well as gateways to send power, quality metrics, local and cloud-based software for analysis.
“This research environment will allow us to develop new insights into pumping efficiency, motor and pump failure prediction and power quality analysis,” said Mike McClurg, president of Load Controls. “The UMass team helped us build an environment that captures all the variables we’ll need to research this important topic. We’re excited about the insights and new products that will come from the installation.”