Reigning
power
RK Srivastava and SG Joshi take an optimistic view of the current scenario
of the pumps and valves industry in India
CThe
technical evolution of the valve is an on going process in response
to the rising expectations from the ever-improving systems in which
they operate. Newer valves are required to have ability to stand frequent
opening and closure, lesser and lesser effort requirements for their
operations and lesser and lesser resistance to flow. Today's valves
have evolved from two position on/off valves to entire flow control
solutions, which are achieved electronically/pneumatically. These valves
have specific customer requirements to meet and their application requires
them to extend themselves in miniature sizes as well.
Pumps
Pump market and features
The pump types used range from centrifugal types to displacement types.
However, the majority of high power pumps belong to centrifugal types.
The demand pattern for pumps can be mainly bifurcated into two main
categories - Industrial (60 per cent) and Infrastructure (40 per cent).
Further classification is as follows:
1. Oil and Gas: 18 per cent
2.Chemicals: 14 per cent
3. Food: 6 per cent
4. Power: 9 per cent
5. Metals: 4 per cent
6. Mining: 4 per cent
7. Pulp/Paper: 5 per cent
8. Water/Sewerage: 11 per cent
9. Construction: 4 per cent
10.Building: 6 per cent
11. Domestic: 9 per cent
12.Others: 8 per cent
13.Marine: 2 per cent
The total world market size is about $20 billion when the pump-driver
sets are taken into account. The top ten companies that mainly include
manufacturers from developed countries such as Flowserve, KSB, Ebara,
Sulzer and others, contribute about 50 per cent of the total market.
Market needs
Regardless of the application sectors as well as pump types, there are
common general trends in engineering needs in the world market. The
example given below by the German Association of Pump Manufacturers
giving various attributes and their respective ratings on a scale of
1-10 highlights this.
1. Speed: 5.8
2. Pressure surge: 5.9
3. Recycling ability: 5.95
4. Suction ability: 6.4
5. Control range: 7.2
6. Noise emission: 7.55
7. Purchase Price: 7.8
8. Emission free: 8.2
9. Efficiency: 8.25
10. Reliability: 9.2.
Thus, it can be seen that requirements of reliability, efficiency and
resultant minimum life cycle cost of the pump system have assumed a
very high significance in the recent past. Users are increasingly becoming
conscious about Life Cycle Costs (LCC) of the equipment over the expected
service lifetime, which consists of sum of costs for purchase,
....CONTD
