Condition monitoring for wastewater pumps: a case study

Read how SAM4 alerted this water industry customer to debris that had started to block this wastewater collection pump's intake.

Debris blocking this municipal water pump’s intake caused it to start cavitating.

SAM4 flagged a sudden increase in the noise floor around the pump’s supply frequency, which continued over the next few days. We contacted the customer to let them know something appeared to have thrown the pump into sustained cavitation; based on earlier detections, we suspected the intake might be blocked. Ten days later the customer removed debris that was blocking the pump’s intake, and the pump returned to normal operation.

“This is one of many such situations SAM4 has alerted us to, which is always a real help in our ability to take timely action.”

The pump’s current spectrum began exhibiting a rise in intensity around the supply frequency. Healthy operation is in black, cavitating in blue.

A heat map showing the intensity over time across the current frequency spectrum (blue is low, red is high). Time runs down the vertical axis from oldest to newest. The rise in noise floor intensity around the supply frequency (at the vertical red line) reveals when the pump was cavitating. The orange arrow marks when the customer removed debris that was blocking the pump, after which its operation returned to normal.