Sinusoidal pumps solve sticky problems for Halewood drinks22 June 2010

Three Maso-Sine SPS4 pumps, from Watson-Marlow Pumps, have survived and successfully solved problems of cavitation and noise at beverage giant Halewood International.

Halewood production trainer Harry Anderson reports that the plant needed an alternative to its existing centrifugal pumps, used for decanting sugars and fruit juice concentrates from tankers arriving at its UK headquarters.

"Due to the high throughput of the Merseyside plant, decanting high volumes of liquid from tankers into holding vessels becomes a strategically critical operation," says Anderson.

"Until recently, the incoming sugars and syrups were unloaded using high pressure hoses and centrifugal pumps. However, the pumps were cavitating and causing loud, knocking noises that could irritate local residents. The pumps were also ageing and becoming too slow for our requirements," he adds.

Anderson explains that one of his colleagues had used MasoSine pumps in a previous life, pointing to their exclusive sinusoidial rotor, which ensures gentle, low shear product handling, but also their heavy duty construction.

"Some of the cold syrups can be extremely viscous so the pump would need to be fairly robust in its operation," says Anderson, "but most importantly the issues of speed, cavitation and noise would need to be overcome."

Anderson went for an initial sale-or-return trial of an SPS4 high pressure model, supplied by Watson-Marlow. Duly installed, the MasoSine SPS4 performed well, not only eliminating cavitation and noise, but also massively reducing the unloading time for sugars and syrups.

"Using our old centrifugal pumps, it would take around 60 minutes to unload a tanker full of sugars. This has been reduced to 35 minutes," states Anderson. "Most impressive, though, is that the time taken to decant a tanker of fruit juice syrup has been cut from four hours to just 45 minutes."

A total of three MasoSine SPS4 pumps are now in operation at Halewood's Merseyside plant where they have been used for 12 months three or four times every day.

Brian Tinham

Related Companies
Watson Marlow Pumps Group

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