Chemical Engineering and Processing 38 (1999) 511 516

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Life cycle costs of pumps in chemical industry

Friedrich-Wilhelm Hennecke *
BASF Aktiengesellschaft, Works Engineering, D-67056 Ludwigshafen, Germany

Received 1 April 1999; accepted 1 April 1999

Abstract

When selecting a pump, not the purchasing costs alone but the total costs of investment, operating (including energy and
maintenance), and final disposal should be regarded. The elements of these life cycle costs (LCC) and a method of calculation are
described in this article. Also statistical measurements about the meantime between failures are presented. 1999 Elsevier Science
S.A. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Pumps; Life cycle costs; Meantime between failures

1. Introduction Because some cost elements will incur at the outset

and others in different periods it is essential to calculate
Pumps are important elements of every chemical with discounted values or net present values of the total
plant. They influence the costs of the plant in many costs of every period.
ways. They cause investment costs. They have to be
operated and therefore need energy and maintenance.
Their failure can cause loss of production. The decision 2. Elements of the LCC
of selecting the pump influences the costs of the plant
for a long time. Therefore it is important not only to This section examines the elements of LCC and
compare the purchasing price of the pump, but to comments on how a realistic value can be determined.
compare the total costs of the pump for a long time,
The investment costs are the costs of the initial
the life cycle costs (LCC) [1].
purchase, installation, and the commissioning costs.
A long time can be the life of the pump, the life of
Not only have the costs of the pump itself to be
the plant (if the life of the plant is shorter than the life
considered, but also the complete pumping system.
of the pump) or a period of for example 10 years.
That is the pumping-unit (pump, driver, baseplate,
Therefore it is of fundamental interest for the plant
coupling, auxiliary services, e.g. barrier liquid vessels),
owner/operator to evaluate the LCC of different solu-
piping, controlling devices etc. and finally the costs for
tions before installing a new pump or before carrying
the building. These total costs of the system can be ten
out a major overhaul. Small increases in initial invest-
times higher than for the pump itself. The total costs of
ment cost, if applied in the right place, may result in
the system of the standby-pump (B-pump) are almost
significant reduction of operating costs.
two thirds of the A-pump.
The elements of the LCC are the investment costs,
Which types of costs have to be evaluated depends
the costs of operating the pump, the cost of loss of
on the kind of alternative technical solutions which
production in case of unexpected breakdown and the
have to be compared.
costs of final disposal.
The costs for operating the pump are energy costs
and costs for routine and major maintenance.

Dedicated to Professor Em. Dr-Ing. Dr h.c. mult. E.-U. Schlun- The cost of energy consumption for operating the
der on the occasion of his 70th birthday.
* Tel.: +49-621-605-4884; fax: +49-621-607-9487.
system includes inputs to the pump driver, to the
E-mail address: [email protected] (F.-W. control means and to any auxiliary services (heating or
Hennecke) cooling circuits, flushing lines, sealing liquids etc.) En-

0255-2701/99/$ - see front matter 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 2 5 5 - 2 7 0 1 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 4 7 - 1
512 F.-W. Hennecke / Chemical Engineering and Processing 38 (1999) 511516

ergy consumption of the motor is often one of the The costs of maintenance are the costs of regular
major cost elements and can dominate the LCC. service (routine maintenance) and the costs of pre-
The calculation of the energy demand starts with dictable maintenance and of unexpected repairs (major
gathering the data on the usage pattern of the system. maintenance).
If the energy demand varies over time, then a time Regular and efficient servicing helps to reduce major
based usage pattern has to be established for calculat- repairs. The daily check by the production people is
ing the energy costs. very important (noise, heat, oil, small leakage). There
The energy costs depend on the type and the design are several methods for monitoring the pumps by com-
of the pump and they depend on how well the charac- puters and by early failure detection, e.g. shock-pulse-
teristic of the pump meets the characteristic of the measurements (SPM).
pumping system (plant). Rotodynamic pumps can be Part of the major maintenance activities is pre-
designed optimal just for one operating point. This is dictable and can be planned in regular shutdowns.
the best efficiency point (BEP). If the pump is operated Repairs are only predictable in the case of wear.
outside this point efficiency decreases. Also the effi- Only for rolling bearings a calculation of the lifetime
ciency of the motor decreases if it is operated with is specified by the manufactures. But care must be
partial load. taken in deciding what is the effective lifetime of an

Fig. 1. Number of pumps with n failures (chemical norm pumps).

Fig. 2. Number of pumps with n failures (canned motor pumps).

 F.-W. Hennecke / Chemical Engineering and Processing 38 (1999) 511516 513

Fig. 3. Variation of failures (chemical norm pumps).

&
Fig. 4. Variation of failures (canned motor pumps).

item. For example, the calculated or assessed L10 life- MTBF= e lt dt between 0 and 
time of a bearing is the statistical estimate of the time
by which 10% of the bearings can be expected to be = 1/l
showing a deterioration in performance. This means R(t) = e t/MTBF
that 90% of the bearings will not be showing a deterio- Substituting values from the L10-calculation (i.e. 90%
ration in performance by this time. But it also means at t= assessed life), shows that the MTBF for bearings
that there will be some of the 10% which will have is approximately ten times higher than the calculated
failed in a shorter time. Whilst this is a suitable basis L10 lifetime.
for the selection of bearings it may be inappropriate for The manufacturer can identify the items whose fail-
estimating the meantime between failures (MTBF) of ure will prevent operation of the pump unit or will
the bearing and of the pump. reduce its life expectancy. He can also describe MTBFs.
Statistical analysis shows that: These will have been derived from past experience or
from theoretical analyses. The items can be expected to
R(t) =e lt
include seals, bearings, impeller/valve/port wear, cou-
where R is the reliability at t, l is the failure rate at the plings, motors and other special items making up the
time t. complete system.
514 F.-W. Hennecke / Chemical Engineering and Processing 38 (1999) 511516

The maintenance costs are influenced by the design have the chance to reach this lifetime. Wear and break-
of the pump and by the choices of the materials of downs depends mainly on whether the pump is oper-
construction. The more the materials are resistant ated in the allowable range (minimum allowable flow
against corrosion, abrasion, erosion, ageing, etc. the rate, maximum allowable flow rate, and temperature
longer is the time to the next repair. Better and there- range) or not. If rotodynamic pumps are operated
fore more expensive materials can reduce costs. outside the point of best efficiency not only the effi-
Manufacturers can calculate a theoretical lifetime of ciency decreases, but there also are higher forces on
the pump, but in a chemical plant only very few pumps shafts and bearings.

Table 1
Calculation of life cycle costs (LCC)

Calculation of LCC
Energy price 0.05 Euro/kWh Nominal interest rate 8%
Inflation rate 2%
Effective interest rate 6%
Pump type CNP 32160 2900 rpm Investment cost 3000 Euro
Energy demand hydraulic 2 kW
Efficiency of the pump 50% Operating hours per year 4000 h
Efficiency of the motor 85% Energy consumption 18 824 kWh
Energy demand 4.71 kW Energy cost per year 941 Euro
Routine maintenance per year 100 Euro
Repair cost per failure 1500 Euro

Year no. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Investment 3000
Energy 941 941 941 941 941 941 941 941 941 941
Energy discounted 941 838 790 745 703 663 626 591 557 526
Maintenance 100 1600 100 1600 100 1600 100 1600 100 1600
Maintenance discounted 100 1424 84 1267 75 1128 67 1004 59 893
Cost/year 4041 2541 1041 2541 1041 2541 1041 2541 1041 2541
Cost/year, discounted 4041 2262 874 2013 778 1791 692 1594 616 1419
Year no. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Investment 3000
Cumulated energy costs, discounted 941 1779 2569 3315 4018 4681 5307 5898 6455 6980
Cumulated maintenance costs, discounted 100 1524 1608 2875 2950 4078 4144 5148 5208 6101
Net present value (LCC) regarding n 4041 6303 7177 9190 9968 11 759 12 452 14 046 14 662 16 081
years

Fig. 5. Energy and maintenance costs for chemical norm pumps 32 160 (5 kW).
 F.-W. Hennecke / Chemical Engineering and Processing 38 (1999) 511516 515

Fig. 6. Energy and maintenance costs for chemical norm pumps 50 250 (27 kW).

If the pump is operated outside this range the chance The time between two failures is shown in the Figs. 3
of a breakdown is extremely high. Therefore good and 4.
monitoring can reduce costs. Very important is the Regarding the time between two failures for CNP-
monitoring of the liquid level. pumps, there is a maximum of pumps with a time
Standstill costs incur if the breakdown of the pump between two failures near one year. But it is not right to
leads o the breakdown of the plant and if the loss of look at the failures alone because 30% had no failure at
production leads to a loss of money. They can not be all. If you look at the pumps which had a failure, the
calculated according to a general scheme, but only average time between two failures is 16 months. If you
individually for every plant and situation. look at all pumps, it is 40 months.
Environmental costs may occur for leakage of With canned motor pumps there is no such maxi-
product during operation and in case of repair, for mum. The average time between two failures is 24
lubricants and for contaminated parts. months, if you look at the pumps which had a failure.
There can also be costs for disinvestment, as for final It is 54 months, if you look at all pumps, but it is likely
disposal, but there may be cash inflow if the used that this average will considerably increase with the
pumps are sold. time of observation.

3. Statistics of failures of pumps in a chemical plant

4. Calculation of LCC
If pumps run in the allowable operating range, they
The calculation of LCC is done according to NOR-
fail by wear. With pumps normally used in chemical
SOK STANDARD [2], but simplified for use in the
industry this is a very long time that is counted in years.
chemical industry. The example is made with typical
Many pumps do not fail by wear, but by many other
values for Germany.
reasons.
The main costs are the investment costs, the energy
In the pump competence centre of a chemical com-
costs and the maintenance costs.
pany with more than 40 000 pumps statistical data
about chemical norm pumps (CNP) and canned motor LCC=LCCinv + LCCenerg + LCCmaint
pumps were gathered.
About 100 CNP, that were repaired in the pump The investment costs are the costs of the pump unit
workshop in the first quarter of 1993, were observed if including the driver.
they had another failure till December 1998. An average price for energy is 0.05 Euro/kWh in
Of these 132 pumps 43 had no failure. On the other Germany.
side one pump had nine failures (Fig. 1). For calculating the energy consumption the opera-
A similar investigation was made for canned motor tion time has to be known. Large continuous plants like
pumps which failed in 1993. Of 122 pumps 82 had no steam crackers are expected to run 8000 h year 1. If
failure. There were no pumps which had more than there is one pump at one place this is the operating
four failures (Fig. 2). time.
516 F.-W. Hennecke / Chemical Engineering and Processing 38 (1999) 511516

If you have a standby-pump the average operation This is important for finding the real cost driver (Fig.
time is half: 4000 h. In a non-continuously operation 6).
plant the operating time is shorter, 2000 or 1000 h. For pumps smaller than 10 kW maintenance costs
Another investigation found an average of 2000 h for are often more important than energy costs.
electrical motors and this is likely the average time for
pumps, too.
Repair costs of 1.500 Euro per event is a typical 5. Conclusions
value for the German chemical industry.
All expenditures are discounted to the net present The investment costs of a pump are only 1020% of
value. The present cost, Cp, of a cost paid after n the total LCC over a period of 10 years.
years, Cn, can be evaluated as: There are pumps with many failures. These failures
Cn are mostly not caused the pumps itself, but by bad
Cp = operating conditions. For these pumps the maintenance
[1+ (i p)]n
costs are dominating. For saving money these pumps
where n = number of years; i =interest rate; expected have to be protected from failures by monitoring.
inflation C price increase. Pumps which are operated under normal conditions
The energy demand of the pump is the hydraulic have a very long time between two failures. Here often
energy demand divided by the pump efficiency and energy costs are important.
divided by the motor efficiency. But over all maintenance costs are more important
Ehydr than energy costs in chemical plants because the major-
E= ity of pumps are small and because they are not oper-
hpumphmot
ated continuously in the allowable range.
The losses of the rotodynamic pumps depend on
whether it operates near the point of best efficiency or
not. The efficiency of the motor also depends on full or
partial load. References
An example of calculating the LCC for a typical case
[1] Petroleum and natural gas industries life cycle costing. Part 1:
is shown in Table 1. Methodology ISO/DIS 15663 1, 1999.
The influence of the MTBF is shown in the Fig. 5 for [2] Lifecycle cost for systems and requirements common require-
a small pump (32160) and for a big pump (50 250). ments. NORSOK STANDAD O-CR-001, 1996.