Effect of air injection method on the performance of an air lift pump

Air lift pump performance was investigated experimentally for different submergence ratios (the ratio between the immersed length of the riser and its total length) using different air injection footpiece designs. For this purpose an air lift pump with a riser 200 cm long and 2.54 cm in diameter, was designed and tested. Nine different air injection footpiece designs were used at four submergence ratios with different air injection pressures (from 0.2 to 0.4 bar). An area of 10 mm(2) was chosen and divided into nine injection hole arrangements (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 15, 25, 34 and 48 holes) to cover the whole experimental range. Four submergence ratios were used for this work: 0.75, 0.7, 0.6 and 0.5. The experimental results showed a marked effect on the pump performance when operated with different types of injectors at different submergence ratios. The results indicated that the disk with three holes (D3) gives the highest efficiency at nearly all submergence ratios. Moreover, it is found that there is a suitable disk design for maximum water how rate at every submergence ratio. Further, the highest efficiency resulted at the largest used submergence ratio, namely 0.75. The pump capacity and efficiency were found to be functions of air flow rate, lift ratio, and injection pressure. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.