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Performance analysis of air-lift pump design

G K Awari1* , P M Ardhapurkar1, D G Wakde1 and L B Bhuyar2

1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Shri Sant Gajanan Maharaj College of Engineering, Shegaon, India
2
Department of Fluid Engineering, College of Engineering, Badnera, India

Abstract: The air-lift pump is a well-established method for vertical transport of liquids and solid–
liquid mixtures. The objectives of the present study are to evaluate the performance of a pump under
predetermined operating conditions and to optimize the related parameters for the use of the pump
for two-phase mixtures of air and water when a compressor is readily available.
This paper is focused on the general mathematical functions applicable to air-lift pump
installations. The effect of various design parameters on the performance of air-lift pump is
presented. A user-friendly computer program is developed on the basis of the optimization of
influencing variables. This program will be useful for the design and installation of an air-lift pump
handling air–water mixtures. A comparative study of an air-lift pump with a centrifugal pump
handling two-phase mixtures is also discussed in the paper.

Keywords: two-phase flow, air-lift pump, immersion ratio

NOTATION 1 INTRODUCTION

Ca concentration factor of air An air-lift pump is a device for raising liquids or

Cw concentration factor of water mixtures of liquids (mostly water) and solids through a
d diameter of the rising main vertical pipe partially submerged in the liquid, by means
D diameter of the nozzle of compressed air introduced into the pipe near the
g acceleration due to gravity lower end. The pressurized air is introduced through the
H head of mixture nozzle located at the bottom of the air supply pipe. A
ma mass flowrate of air rising main covers this assembly fixed in the well. A
mw mass flowrate of water mixture of air and water is formed within the rising
Pa atmospheric air pressure main. Since the density of the air–water mixture is much
Ps pressure of the compressed air less than that of pure water, a very long column of air–
Qa discharge of air water mixture will be required to balance even a very
Qw discharge of water short column of pure water. As such, the air–water
Va superficial air velocity mixture will begin to flow through the rising main and it
will be issued continuously at the top of the rising main
e immersion ratio
so long as the supply of air is maintained. During early
Z efficiency of the pump
ra density of air stages, the air-lift pump was used for water lifting and
f function later for lifting and transporting corrosive and radio-
active liquids as well as for pumping crude oil.
There have been numerous publications suggesting
calculation procedures for the design and satisfactory
Subscripts
operation of an air-lift pump. Others are those by
a air Pickert [1] and Stenning and Martin [2]. Ambiguity in
w water the experimental results obtained by Pickert and by
m mean Stenning and Martin was observed in terms of the
diameter of the rising main which is related to the
The MS was received on 22 January 2004 and was accepted after efficiency of the pump. All the studies depend on either
revision for publication on 30 June 2004. experimental data or empirical correlation factors
* Corresponding author: Center for Advanced Fluid Flow Computing,
pertaining to specific categories of practical application.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Shri Sant Gajanan Maharaj
College of Engineering, Shegaon, Dist-Buldana, Maharashtra (MS), Requirements for handling two-phase mixtures are
India. increasing day by day; published test results are few
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1156 G K AWARI, P M ARDHAPURKAR, D G WAKDE AND L B BHUYAR
and are not suitable from an installation point of view.
The ability of the centrifugal pump to handle entrained
gases is very limited. If the air or gas percentage
increases beyond 14 vol %, the pump stops working and
is said to be air bound [3]. The aim of the present study
is to analyse experimentally the parameters affecting the
performance of the air-lift pump, leading to more
generalized mathematical functions. The generalized
computer program will find usefulness in the optimum
design of a pump for installation.
2 EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP
The line diagram of a designed and developed air-lift
pump with an injecting device at the bottom of the rising
main is shown in Fig. 1. Water is drawn into the rising
main from an open tank where the pump is installed.
Air, pressurized by a single-stage compressor, through a
reservoir enters the suction pipe from a designed nozzle.
The valve regulates the pressure of air and its velocity is
monitored by a Pitot tube placed in the circuit. The air–
water mixture is discharged through the rising main and
is collected in the delivery tank. The water flowrates
were measured and normalized with the product of the
area of the pipe and the superficial water velocity,
indicating the fractional velocity of air assuming air
flowing alone in the same pipe or water flowing alone;
both are fictitious. The temperature of air was observed
to be constant at 34 8C throughout the test. Tests were
conducted by varying different parameters such as the
pressure of the compressed air, immersion ratio,
diameter of the rising main and diameter of the nozzle.
Initially the need for an injecting device (nozzle) is
verified experimentally and then the effect of nozzles
with different diameters is studied. The pump head was
measured with the help of a manometer installed near
Fig. 1 Outline of experimental set-up
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the water surface corresponding to a higher immersion
ratio. The head loss due to friction is not discussed in the
paper because of the difficulties in isolating and
measuring these losses. The volumetric concentration
of liquid as a fraction of the total volume of flow is
calculated as [4]
Vm ðsuperficialÞ
Cw ¼
Vm ðtrueÞ
Also
Vm ðsuperficialÞ
Ca ¼
Vm ðtrueÞ
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
and Va = gD is the pipe flow criterion which is of the
Froude type. The efficiency of the pump is evaluated on
the basis of the energy possessed by the air employed to
operate the well. Since the air expansion in the pipe is
isothermal, the input energy to the pump is the energy
required to compress the air and the output energy is the
product of the mass flowrate of water and the head of
mixture developed by the pump. The expression for the
efficiency of the pump is [5]
mw H
Z¼
ra Qa logðPs =Pa Þ
The immersion ratio e is defined as the ratio of the
submergence length of the riser to the riser length [6].
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Effect of the diameter of the rising main
The most significant geometric parameter is the dia-
meter of the rising main which has a great effect on the
efficiency of the air-lift pump. The cross-sectional area
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Table 1 Comparative data for different nozzle diameters

Diameter of the rising Immersion Nozzle Discharge Head Efficiency

main d (in) ratio e diameter D (mm) Qw (l/s) H (m) Z ð%Þ

1.5 0.54 5.26 0.28 1.05 8.46

1.5 0.54 4.00 0.21 1.17 6.79
1.5 0.54 3.80 0.19 1.35 5.71
2.5 0.74 5.26 0.46 1.83 21.86
2.5 0.74 4.00 0.13 2.48 11.45
2.5 0.74 3.80 0.12 3.32 11.02

required by air as it rises increases linearly and the cross-
sectional area required by water decreases. Thus the
water velocity increases as it rises. The difference
between the mean air velocity in pipe and the average
velocity of water, i.e. the relative air velocity, determines
the efficiency of the pump. The higher the relative
velocity, the more air will be required from the
compressor and therefore the pump is less efficient.
The relative air velocity is greater in a narrow pipe than
in a larger-diameter pipe. Increasing the relative air
velocity means water particles are lagging the air and
discharge of the pump decreases. It is observed that the
discharge is negligible in narrow pipes. An increase in
the diameter of the pipe reduces the relative air velocity
and increases the discharge of the pump. Thus the
efficiency is better for a large-diameter pipe than for a
narrow pipe. It is also evident from Table 1 that the
discharge and efficiency of pump for a rising main of
2.5 in diameter are greater than for a rising main of
1.5 in diameter. These results are in conformity with the
results obtained by Stenning and Martin [2] who has
challenged the results of Pickert [1] that a narrow pipe is
better from an efficiency point of view.
The functional relationship developed between the
various parameters affecting the performance of the air-
lift pump is Qw ¼ Va D2 fðdH=D2 , Z, eÞ. However, the
determination of the function relating the parameters
will not be discussed here as future work will focus on
this issue.
3.2 Need for an injecting device
Initially the need for an injecting device is verified
experimentally on rising mains of 0.5, 1 and 1.25 in
diameters. The raising of liquid has been found to be
mainly due to the kinetic head. It is observed that in a
narrow pipe the kinetic head is significant even without
the nozzle and some quantity of water is lifted.
However, in larger-diameter pipes the discharge is
negligible without a nozzle. The decrease in discharge
without use of an injecting device was observed to be
nearly 50 per cent, which can be compensated by
operating the pump at a higher immersion ratio. It is
worth mentioning that a pump without an injecting
device is capable of lifting a liquid with a lower pressure
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of air in a rising main of small diameter. Depending
upon the requirement a techno-economic feasible
solution may be obtained to justify the use of an
injecting device from an energy point of view.
3.3 Effect of the nozzle diameter and the criteria of
selection
The performance of the air-lift pump have been
evaluated by conducting tests with nozzles having
different diameters, namely 5.26, 4.0 and 3.80 mm, and
the different diameters of the rising main, namely 0.5, 1,
1.5, 2 and 2.5 in. The effects of the variations in the
nozzle diameter for a constant diameter of the rising
main and in the immersion ratio on the discharge, head
and efficiency are summarized in Table 1. It is clear from
Table 1 that, for any constant diameter of the rising
main and constant immersion ratio, the effect of
increasing the nozzle diameter is to improve the
discharge and efficiency while there is decrease in the
head developed by the pump.
The selection of nozzle diameter depends upon the
diameter of rising main. The optimum diameter of
nozzle can be evaluated from the polynomial function
developed:
D ¼ 8:53d 2
14:42d þ 21:03
where d is the diameter of the rising main in inches and
D is the diameter of the nozzle in millimetres. The
algebraic equation proposed here is a generalized
equation to find the optimum diameter of nozzle for
any dimension of rising main applicable to all immer-
sion ratios.
3.4 Effect of the air pressure
The effect of the air pressure on the discharge of a pump
for different nozzle diameters, keeping the diameter of
the rising main and the immersion ratio constant
ðd ¼ 2:5 in and e ¼ 1:21Þ, is shown in Fig. 2. From the
graph it is observed that an increase in air pressure
initially causes the discharge of a pump for all nozzle
diameters to increase and then to decrease. The
optimum air pressure will differ from nozzle to nozzle.
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Fig. 2 Comparison of nozzle diameters

It is also clear that, for higher constant air pressure and
larger nozzle diameter, the greater is the discharge.
Hence a nozzle with a larger diameter is suitable for
maximizing the discharge at any desired air pressure.
The air-lift pump works on the density difference
principle where the density of the mixture is varying
and the density of the liquid remains constant. This is
because, if the nozzle diameter is large, a greater
quantity of pressurized air from the entrance will mix
with the water, resulting in a decrease in the mixture’s
density, which leads to a gain in the kinetic head. This
ultimately results in an increase in the discharge of
water.
3.5 Effect of the relative mass flowrates and immersion
ratio
The variations in mass flowrates of water with respect to
the mass flowrate of air for different immersion ratios
keeping the diameters of the rising main and nozzle
constant (pipe diameter, 1.5 in; nozzle diameter,
5.26 mm) are shown in Fig. 3. The flow of water starts
only when there is a definite flow of air through the
rising main and the amount of air required is inversely
proportional to the immersion ratio. For the given mass
flowrate of air, the amount of water lifted decreases with
decrease in the immersion ratio. A small immersion

Fig. 3 Comparison of mass flowrates for different immersion ratios

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 PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF AIR-LIFT PUMP DESIGN
Fig. 4 Effect of the immersion ratio on the efficiency of the pump for two different diameters of the rising
main
ratio will lead to uneconomical working of the pump as
high-velocity air mixes with water outside the rising
main and the bubbles formed escape through the surface
of water, causing loss of energy. For a constant
immersion ratio, the amount of water pumped increases
with increase in the air flow initially and reaches its
maximum; a further increase in the air flowrate does not
alter the quantity of water lifted and it is fairly constant.
Hence it is not justified to increase the flow of air beyond
a certain optimum value. In order to lift the maximum
possible water with the minimum amount of air, the
specific mass of air masp ¼ ma/mw should be as small as
possible.
Figure 4 shows the effect of the immersion ratio on
the efficiency of a pump with various diameters of the
rising main (1.5 and 2.5 in). It is found that with an
increase in the immersion ratio the efficiency of pump
increases for any diameter of the rising main. It is also
clear from the graphs that the pump with a larger
diameter of rising main operates at a higher efficiency,
as discussed earlier in section 3.1.
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3.6 Comparative study of the characteristics of an air-
lift pump and a two-phase centrifugal pump
Generally centrifugal pumps are used in deep wells.
Hence the discussion is confined to a centrifugal pump
handling two-phase mixtures. The ability of a centrifu-
gal pump to suck liquid with entrained gases is very
limited. If the air or gas percentage increases beyond
14 vol %, then the pump stops working. It is said to be
air bound. If the gas accumulation exceeds this
percentage, then it is feasible to use an air-lift pump.
A comparative study of the discharge, head, power
consumed and efficiency for a centrifugal pump is
shown in Fig. 5 and for an air-lift pump (the air
concentration in a mixture 36 vol %) is shown in Fig. 6.
The discharge of an air-lift pump is less than that of a
centrifugal pump. The performance of the centrifugal
pump is obtained for a pipe of 10 in diameter, using a
900 r/min impeller speed with an outside diameter of
16.5 in, and a width of 1.3 in. The air-lift performance
was obtained for a nozzle diameter of 5.26 mm with a
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Fig. 5 Effect of the discharge on the head, power and efficiency of a centrifugal pump

Fig. 6 Effect of the discharge on the head, power and efficiency of an air-lift pump

rising main of diameter 2.5 in at the highest level of
submergence. The head of the air-lift pump increases to
a certain extent and then it drops due to the increase in
the superficial velocity of air but in the case of the
centrifugal pump the head increases with discharge and
then is fairly constant. The main difference between
these two is that the efficiency of the centrifugal pump
depends on the suction lift but in the case of the air-lift
pump its performance depends upon the submergence
level. The submergence required for the air-lift pump is
twice that for a modern centrifugal pump for acceptable
efficiency. It is observed that the power consumption of
a centrifugal pump increases initially and is almost
constant at higher discharges whereas, in the case of an
air-lift pump, little variation in power consumed is
observed. However, the centrifugal pump consumes less
power for lifting a unit quantity of water. If the required
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capacity of the pumping mixture is high and the gas
percentage in the mixture is limited to 14 vol %, then use
of a centrifugal pump is always suitable. However, when
the percentage of gas in the mixture is beyond 14 vol %,
there is no alternative to an air-lift pump even at the
expense of more power. Hence, depending upon the
head, discharge requirement and gas accumulation in
the mixture, the selection of the proper pump should be
made.
3.7 Computer program
A user-friendly computer program has been developed
by correlating the various influencing parameters of the
pump, namely the diameter of the rising main, the
diameter of the nozzle, etc. The program input
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parameters are the discharge and head requirement;
the output results are predicted in terms of parameters
from an installation point of view, i.e. the diameter of
the rising main and a suitable nozzle diameter for this
rising main. The optimization of the installation is a
most important feature of this program. This means
that the code can calculate the optimum value for the
diameter of the rising main, the critical diameter of the
nozzle and the other parameters in order to maximize
the efficiency of the pump. The validity of the pro-
gram is under consideration and is not presented here.
4 CONCLUSIONS
An applied air-lift model for air water flow has been
developed on the basis of experimental analysis; this
model performs very well and the complexity of
analysing the performance is reduced to a great extent.
Based on the results of experiments the following
conclusions are drawn:
1. A larger diameter of the rising main results in better
efficiency of the pump.
2. It is desirable to introduce the air through a nozzle
for larger-diameter pipes.
3. The optimum value of the nozzle diameter is
correlated with the diameter of the rising main.
4. An increase in the air pressure increases the discharge
of pump to a certain limit and then it decreases.
5. The efficiency of pump linearly increases with
increase in the immersion ratio.
The results of the present analysis are in good
agreement with the existing data in the literature. In
order to approximate the phenomenon better a func-
tional dimensional analysis is in progress. This model-
ling is expected to contribute more to the optimum
design of the air-lift pump installation.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank Shri Shrikant Patil,
Director of Gajanan Shiskhan Sanstha, for financial
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support for this work. The support of the principal,
Shri Sant Gajanan Maharaj College of Engineering,
Shegaon, and Dr P. D. Patil, Head of the Mechanical
Engineering Department, is gratefully acknowledged.
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Mech. Engrs
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