In many industrial sectors, rising pressure requirements often lead to the same quick conclusion: replace the existing pump with a bigger, more expensive unit. At Optis Engineering, we believe there is sometimes another way.

With today’s most advanced numerical simulation and hydraulic optimization tools, it is now possible to push existing equipment beyond its original limits and achieve performance gains that were once difficult to reach.

A New Approach to Centrifugal Pump Optimization

Multistage centrifugal pumps are used in a wide range of industrial applications where reliability, available pressure and energy efficiency are critical to process performance.

When operating requirements change, however, manufacturers and operators often face a difficult decision, and the default answer is usually to invest in new equipment.

Advances in CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) simulation now make a second option possible: improving the hydraulic performance of the existing pump through targeted optimization of its impellers or diffusers.

Turning a Constraint into a Competitive Advantage

Turning a Constraint into a Competitive Advantage

The approach developed by Optis Engineering is built on a precise analysis of the hydraulics that limit the performance of centrifugal pumps.

Stage-to-stage interactions, energy losses and recirculation can now be visualized, measured and optimized before a single new component is manufactured.

This makes it possible to develop retrofit solutions that improve performance without changing how the equipment is integrated at the customer’s site. An alternate impeller geometry, or a new diffuser, can provide significant gains for a fraction of the cost of a new equipment.

Benefits That Go Well Beyond Performance

Hydraulic optimization isn’t just about increasing flow and pressure. It can also help:

✔ improve pump energy efficiency;
✔ reduce operating costs;
✔ extend equipment service life;
✔ limit capital spending on new assets;
✔ support predictive maintenance strategies;
✔ increase the availability of critical equipment.

For manufacturers, this approach also creates an opportunity to get more value from an existing platform by developing a new generation of higher-performing products, without starting from a blank sheet.

Expertise That Transforms Existing Equipment

At Optis Engineering, we support industrial equipment manufacturers in developing and optimizing their products by combining hydraulic expertise, CFD simulation and advanced digital engineering.

Whether the goal is to increase pressure, improve energy efficiency or optimize an existing design, our objective remains the same: turn technical constraints into lasting competitive advantages.

Read Our Case Study

Want to see how this approach delivered a 20% increase in head and a 10-point efficiency gain on a multistage centrifugal pump?

Read the full case study to explore the challenges, the engineering approach and the results achieved.