The opportunity to witness Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) of pumps came to me. About a week ago I visited our vendor’s factory at Industrial zone in Pulogadung, Indonesia. Our plan was to witness the performance of three different pumps.
Our pumps were not API pumps therefore the performance test procedure was quite simple and quick. The performance test of one pump took less than 30 minutes. However, the preparation, such as mobilization of pump, installation, make sure there’s no leak in the pipe, took longer time than the test itself.
There are several parameters to be checked during test, suction head, discharge head, rpm, power, voltage, bearing temperature, vibration level, and noise level. The pumps were operated under different flow rate, such as 0%, 25%, 50%, 100%, and 120% capacity, and at minimum flow. Those parameters were checked at different flow condition.
After we got the actual parameters, we plotted on the graphs. Then we compare the actual performance with design performance. The deviation shall not more than 6%.