Pro tip: check your suction line bell curve more often than you think

Was running a 12 inch cutterhead on a river job near Memphis. Pump kept losing prime every couple hours. My boss came down, watched for ten minutes, then said 'your bell is too flat.' He was right. I had the suction hose curve too gentle after the last repair. Made it a tighter bend, like he showed me. Prime held solid for the rest of the shift. How often do you guys check your line setup?

2 comments

2 Comments

thomas_young19d ago

Yeah that "bell is too flat" thing is real. My buddy was running a 10-inch dredge on a sand pit and had the same headache, prime kept dropping. Turns out his suction line had a super long, lazy bend right after the pump from when they moved the setup. They just cut a section out to make a sharper 90 and it was like night and day, pump ran smooth.

james67218d ago

Wait, is this the same thing people call "backside turbulence" or is that different? @thomas_young that makes a lot of sense actually, I always thought sharper bends were worse for flow but now I see it's different right after the pump. Idk, guess I was wrong about that one.