Standards on pumps have their own importance, especially with the globalisation of Indian economy.

Pump standards developed by different bodies have been popular in different sectors.

Indian standards on pumps have also addressed issues of national concern such as energy conservation in agricultural pumping. They have in turn motivated technological upgradation across the Indian pump industry.

Since pumps always operate in a system, in standards on pumps, there have been also standards laying out recommendations and guidelines on proper configuration of pumping systems.

In this paper the author presents an overview of the role played by pump standards globally in general and nationally in particular.

STANDARDS ARE LIKE MONEY

Standards seem to serve the same purposes, as money does in an economic society. In economics they say –
Money is a matter of functions four
A Medium, a Measure, a Standard and a Store.
To serve as a standard is one of the functions of money. Does a standard also serve other functions of serving as a medium, a measure and a store?

Function as a Medium

When a buyer wants to buy a pump for a service in petroleum refinery, just mentioning that the pump should conform to API-610 communicates a lot of attributes of the pump. Thus a standard serves the function of medium of communication.

Function as a Measure

When a pump is specified for a flow-rate of, say, 25 m3/h and head of 25m, one gets a clear idea of what duties are expected of the pump. Or when a pump is said to conform to IS-13518, the user has the confidence that in the event of replacement any make pump of equivalent duty conforming to ISO-2858 can fit in its place, without any modification to the baseplate or the installation. The mounting dimensions will be all identical.

Function as a Standard

When a pump has an ISI mark, say, under IS-9079, the ISI mark connotes that the pump will deliver the specified duty with an efficiency equal to better than the norm for minimum efficiency applicable to it as per IS-9079.

Function as a Store

Standard such as IS-10596 Code of Practice for Selection, Installation, Operation and Maintenance of Pumps for Industrial Applications is a great store of knowledge, immensely useful to everybody concerned with industrial pumps.

TYPES OR CATEGORIES OF STANDARDS

Standards themselves are of different categories, such as
• product standards,
• codes of testing,
• codes of practice and
• definitions and terminologies.

One can find all such categories of standards, also among standards on a subject like pumps.

INDIAN STANDARDS

Every country has a nodal standards organization. In India we have Bureau of Indian standards (BIS), formerly known as Indian Standards Institution (ISI). As of 2005, BIS has developed some 45 standards on various types of pumps covering various aspects of pumps.

ISO STANDARDS

BIS also represents country’s interests at various committees of International Standards Organization (ISO), especially on committee TC-115 in respect of pumps. By virtue of membership of ISO, BIS has the facility to dual-number ISO-standards and print and publish them as IS/ISO –standards. Many ISO-standards on pumps have been dual-numbered.

By such facility of dual-numbering International approach to standardization is easily available for adaptation in the country.

API STANDARDS

In specific sectors, especially in the petroleum sector, standards of American Petroleum Institute (API) are popular worldwide. In the petroleum sector in India also API-610 has been in vogue since long.

Recently, the tenth edition of API-610 is itself dual-numbered by an agreement between ISO and API. So, tenth edition of API-610 is now also ISO-13907. As an ISO-standard, it can be dual-numbered as an IS-standard and this is under process.

STANDARDS FOR END-SUCTION PUMPS FOR NON-CRITICAL SERVICES

API-610 is usually referred for pumps for critical services. For non-critical services, there again for end-suction pumps in particular, ISO-2858 was developed from DIN-24256. ISO-2858 has been dual-numbered vide IS-13518. In America, the standard in vogue, similar to ISO-2858 has been ANSI-B-73.1.

FIRE-SAFETY STANDARDS

Subject of fire-safety has been accorded the status of statutory compliance in every country, from times even prior to WW2. Until the development of IS-12469, IS-standard on firefighting pumps, manufacture, testing and certification was regulated by norms of Tariff Advisory Committee (TAC).

With globalization, for exporting fire-fighting pumps to most countries around the world, it is becoming mandatory for Indian manufacturers to get listing by Underwriters Laboratory (UL) vide their standards UL-448. This standard is derived from NFPA 20, the standard by National Fire Protection Agency (of USA). NFPA itself does not have such operation of surveillance and certification. This activity is handled by UL.

HI STANDARDS

Hydraulic Institute (HI) is another organization very popularly recognized for its standards on pumps. Actually by the constitution of its memberships, HI is similar to IPMA, as association of manufacturers of pumps. But they adopted a focus to develop standards on pumps. Even at their website www.pumps.org their avowed motto is declared as “Creating standards since 1917”.

HI standards are primarily guidelines, than standards for mandatory compliance. Guidelines which are unique in HI standards are in respect of viscosity correction factors, design of sumps, especially for mounting multiple pumps in a sump, margins over NPSHr, etc. There is also a monogram on “Estimating Efficiency of Centrifugal Pumps”.

CERTIFICATION MARKING

Manufacturers of pumps for their ranges of pumps conforming to different IS standards can avail from Bureau of Indian standards a license to use ISI mark on their pumps. BIS would extend such certification marking even to manufactures abroad.

In a way, this is necessary to ensure that imported pumps do not offend some issues of national concern, especially that of Energy Conservation. Indian Standards, especially for agricultural pumps are unique on this aspect of Energy Conservation. In IS-standards for agricultural pumps, especially,

• IS-6595 Part 1 for Horizontal Centrifugal Pumps for agricultural purposes
• IS-8034 for Submersible Pump sets (for bore wells)
• IS-9079 for Electric Monoset pumps for agricultural purposes
• IS-14220 for Openwell Submersible Pumpsets

norms for minimum efficiency are specified. To verify compliance, pumps are to be tested as per IS-11346 Code of tests for agricultural pumps.

In many countries agricultural pumps would be under the category of “Mass-produced pumps” for which the annexure in ISO-9906 the code of acceptance testing would permit wide tolerance on efficiency. This is offensive to India’s concern for Energy Conservation. So, it is important that imported pumps do not offend this concern and hence all imported pumps should comply with IS-standards.

Similar to ISI mark from BIS British Standards Institute offers a mark, which is popularly known as “Kite” mark, so called in view of the look of that mark. American Petroleum Institute also offers certification to use API monogram.

STANDARDS FOR CUSTOM-BUILT PUMPS

Unlike agricultural pumps, which are mass-produced, Vertical Turbine Pumps and Axially Split casing pumps are often custom-built. Prima facie one would agree that it would not be logical to have a standard on custom-built pumps. Yet we have been having IS-1710 on Vertical Turbine Pumps since 1950s!

STANDARDS FOR PUMPING SYSTEMS

Importance of pumping system to be proper, so that the consumption of power will be optimal, was realized long time back. It was in 1979 that IS-10804 standard for “Recommended Agricultural Pumping System” was developed. Although the title of the standard read as “Recommended”, NABARD made it mandatory for its refinance of loans afforded to farmers for their pumps.

It is interesting to note that HI also now emphasizes the importance of pumping systems to be optimal for good performance of pumps. At their website www.pumps.org they now provide for free download “Pumping System Improvement Tool (PSIT)”

Realizing that a system component such as a foot-valve can cause unwarranted frictional loss and in turn offend optimal performance of the pump, IS-10805, the standard on foot-valves was developed. BIS also operates ISI-mark licensing scheme for foot-valves as per IS-10805.

QUALITY SYSTEM STANDARDS

Unlike product standards, Quality System Standards of series ISO-9000 ensure consistency of quality. This has become a mandatory requirement for all global trade. It is good to note that most pump-manufacturers in India regardless of the scale of the unit have ISO-9000 certification.

STANDARDS ON RELATED ASPECTS

Apart from pump standards, design and manufacture of pumps entails compliance with standards on related aspects such as
• Standards on Drilling of flanges
• Standards on Materials of Construction
• Standard for mechanical sealing system
• Standard for balancing of rotating unit

Standards on drilling of flanges are either metric standards or American standards. Standards for drilling of flanges are associated with pressure-rating and material of the pump casing. For example, in American standard ANSI-B:16.5 details of drilling of flanges in steel for pressure ratings of classes 150, 300, 600, 900, etc. are detailed. And in American standard ANSI-B:16.1 details of drilling of flanges in Cast Iron for pressure ratings of classes 125 and 250 are detailed. These “classes” seem to correspond to metric pressure-ratings PN 1.6, 2.5, 4.0, 6.4 etc. But they would not be exact equivalents and in details of drilling, viz. pcd, size and no. of bolt-holes, there is rarely any matching.

For standards on Materials of construction, standards of American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) are globally popular. Yet, for specific materials like wrought stainless steels, AISI designations such as AISI-410, AISI-304, AISI-316, etc. are globally popular, so much so that these designations are also used even for cast or forged materials, though cast materials should be called by their ASTM-designations such as CA-15, CF-8, CF-8M, etc.

The subject of mechanical sealing system used to be covered in API-610 until its sixth edition. But API developed API-682 to cover the subject in good detail.

Balancing of rotating unit of the pump is an important step in the manufacturing sequence of a pump. Grade 6.3 as detailed in IS-11723 Part 1 is considered appropriate for pumps. The serial number of the standard will be different in different countries. But definition of Grade 6.3 is universally uniform.

HOW MUCH SHOULD A STANDARD SPECIFY?

There is a standard IS-9301 on Deep Well Hand Pumps. Any peson wanting to venture into manufacturing pumps as per this standard would not need any drawing and design activity. Well-dimensioned drawings for almost all components are available in the standard itself!

Indian pumps made as per IS-9301, designated as “India Mark 2”, “India Mark 3” have become a globally respected brand and have rendered yoeman’s service in many water-thirsty countries, and technically illiterate populations in countries like Algeria.

How much a standard should specify depends mostly on what gamut of specifications would keep the user satisfied. The common man would not need a chronometer with the accuracy of an atomic clock.

But a standard on International System of Units would define a second as period elapsing when a Caesium 133 atom would emit 9 billion, 192 million, 631 thousand, 770 number of radiations when tansitting between two hyperfine levels of the ground state.

For the common man a second is 60th part of a minute, which is 60th part of an hour, which is 24th part of a day, which is 365th part of a non-leap year or 366th part of a leap year. For the common man, day is the time period from one midnight to another. But this definition would not work in countries like Norway and Sweden, where sun may not set at all for as long as six months!

STANDARDS KEEP EVOLVING

When norms for minimum efficiency for agricultural pumps were first specified in standards like IS-9079 and IS-6595 in the editions of these standards in 1979, lot of data-collection had been done of efficiencies of agricultural pumps, manufactured by different manufacturers. The norms were set so as not to permit restrictive trade practice for a few good manufacturers, yet to provide a motivation for inferior quality manufacturers to upgrade.

When revising the standard in 1989, the norms were derived from ‘chart efficiencies’ in Handbooks, as Best attainable efficiencies. So for norms in IS standards to serve as norms for minimum efficiency, the norms were derived by applying some discounting factors to the chart efficiencies.

In the latest revision in 2002, the norms of 1989 were upgraded by a multiplication factor of 1.05. By this upgradation, the norms even as norms for minimum efficiency are close to 90 or 95 percent of “chart efficiencies”.

Even International practices are somewhat misleading on this aspect. ISO-9906 Code of Acceptance Tests for rotodynamic pumps has an appendix for mass-produced pumps which permits deviation of +/- 7% from the efficiency implicit in the declarations in the manufacturer’s catalog. This means that if the value of efficiency implicit is 60% the actual efficiency can be only 93% of 60%, i.e. only 55.8%.

The approach in IS-specifications for agricultural pumps is worthy as a commendable, trail-blazing approach, because no International Standard has ever specified norms for minimum efficiency, there again never with the color of mandatory compliance.

STANDARDISATION THRIVES AND EVOLVES BY PARTICIPATION

All the trail-blazing approach on evolving and specifying norms for minimum efficiencies for agricultural pumps happened because of the National concern for Energy Conservation in agricultural pumping. The standard IS-10804 on Recommended Agricultural Pumping System was, as a standard only recommendatory. But NABARD gave it a mandatory aspect, by regulating its refinance of loans for agriculral pumps to be dispersible only if the pumping system conforms to IS-10804. Technical officers of NABARD were of the Technical Committee of Bureau of Indian Standards even in the stages of formulation of the standard.

Out of total power generation in the country, pumping accounts for nearly 60% or more of the connected load. Every pumping load can be relooked into towards scope there for energy conservation. This will motivate standards to be evolved to bench-mark the consumption of power by pumping loads. Globalisation of Indian economy also serves as a good challenge for Indian pump manufacturers to be globally competent and competitive. This does demand compliance to International standards on pumps. Looking to the increasing presence of Indian pumps in the global market, it can be said that Indian Pump Industry is well-poised.