HEINZ P.
BLOCH, RELIABILITY/EQUIPMENT EDITOR
Reliability Heinz.Bloch@HydrocarbonProcessing.com
Avoid pump shaft failures
We welcome and thrive on questions from reliability engi-
neers and try to answer some as best we can. Inquiries do not
only inform us of the state of knowledge and the issues con-
fronting industry; our answers often require research, and our
selections are appreciated by other readers.
We were asked to provide some direction relating to a reader’s
research on potential causes of catastrophic pump shaft and im-
peller failure. “In the course of my work as a pump and vibration
specialist,” the reader said, “I have encountered a number of such
failures. One root cause of these failures that has been suggested
is a failed check valve, which allows the pump to freewheel in
reverse due to backflow. However, I have found no documenta-
tion that supports or explains this failure mode. In conversations
with various pump and field service technicians, it has been sug-
gested that, when a pump is started while spinning in reverse,
the starting torque exceeds the shaft strength and catastrophic
shaft failure occurs. However, this explanation is counter to my
understanding of electric motor starting torque.”
Pumps and pumps. Our reply highlighted first what our read-
er, of course, knew: There are cheap pumps and there are well-
designed, more expensive pumps. In the days when there was
still an abundance of common sense, some wise man wrote that
we always get what we pay for.
User experts Ed Nelson and John Dufour1 noted that nearly
all impeller fastening arrangements for single-stage pumps are
threaded in a direction that is counter to the as-designed pump
rotation. This reduces the chances of loosening in case the
pump is driven in the reverse direction. But, the probability of
reverse rotation is close to zero if the motor’s direction of rota-
tion is checked before coupling the driver to the driven shaft. If
the motor and pump are installed in the as-shipped and coupled
condition, the chances of an impeller coming off are, of course,
50%.2 Nelson and Dufour remind us that some impellers are
screwed onto (or into) the wet end of the pump shaft (FIG. 1).
These impeller types are particularly vulnerable to backward
rotation in the case of product backflow.
Backflow can be prevented by discharge check valves, but
not all pumping loops have working check valves, and user com-
panies rarely include these valves on their periodic turnaround
inspection and repair schedules. That fact is kept in mind by
users who, for that and other reasons, favor pump designs that
safely secure impellers to the shaft.
Know the impeller fastening method. No pump manu-
facturer has a universal fastener suitable for all pump sizes and
service environments. In fact, the fastening method is not usu-
ally shown on the manufacturer’s standard drawings. Also, rela-
tively few user-purchasers include process pumps in a thorough
upfront machinery quality assessment (MQA).3 The fasteners,
in general, are standard items that the pump manufacturer pur-
chases in bulk from a competitive seller. Like pump owners,
pump manufacturers want to purchase parts from the lowest-
cost supplier of buy-out or third-party items.
However, these fasteners can be a source of problems. Hard-
ness and metallurgy must be observed, which brings us back to
an MQA. Usually, an impeller spins off only if it is not properly
secured, but even a keyed impeller fit jeopardizes reliability if
the key is loosely fitted. Whatever their size and speed, pump
impellers secured by castellated nuts or washers must retain
the impellers in a manner that does not allow them to come off
while operating in any direction. That is why we should exam-
ine drawings before we purchase; we should know how parts or
machines work before we buy parts; and we must ask a lot of
relevant questions before buying plant assets.
Some superior pump designs use keys to secure impellers.
A good key fit is a snug fit, meaning that hand-fitting is needed.
Whereas, a vulnerable keyway has sharp corners, a keyway with
low-stress concentration has bottom fillet radii, which then in-
creases shaft safety factors. A well-designed shaft end also has
a generous fillet radius at the shaft shoulders. In some applica-
tions, the fillet contour is purposely made so large that special
care must be taken so that it does not interfere with the mating
radius at the bearing inner ring. Verification takes time. The in-
different do not take the extra time, and the uninformed do not
even know what to do with the extra time management allocat-
ed for higher-quality work. Pardon us for quoting Mark Twain
by saying, “The man who has a book and does not read it is no
different from the man who cannot read.”
For the record. The starting torque of many motors is seven
times the full running torque. It is agreed that discharge check
A
FIG. 1. A screw-on style impeller, which is particularly vulnerable to
backward rotation in the case of product backflow.2
Hydrocarbon Processing | MARCH 201625
 Reliability
valves rarely leak to the point of allowing substantial reverse
flow. “Lean and mean” plants don’t always install these check
valves, and, if they do, those valves are not usually included in
preventive-maintenance routines. In any event, a pump reli-
ability and/or failure analysis review should include the piping
and all related systems.
In the reader’s repeat-failure example, it is also possible that
several seemingly small deviations can combine. It is easy to get
away with one or even two deviations, but it is rare to succeed
with four or five. Next to an electric motor, a pump is the sim-
plest machine used by man. It typically has 40 parts and yet fails
relatively often. An aircraft jet engine has more than 8,000 parts
and rarely fails. Why? Jet engine manufacturers strive for perfec-
tion; they disallow every known deviation. Their quest to find
root causes of failure and their refusal to tolerate known devi-
ances require trained personnel, strict adherence to checklists
and procedures, and the time to do things correctly.
In this instance, we were not given enough information to
accurately determine why the reader’s pump shafts failed. We
can only vouch for the greatly increased probability of com-
bining a few seemingly minor deviations from best practice so
as to cause trouble. As deviations combine, safety factors will
vanish, impellers will come off and shafts will break. There will
never be a good substitute for following procedures and for un-
derstanding what happened. Replacing parts and restarting the
rebuilt machine without addressing the true root cause is the
perfect setup for repeat failures. Finding the root causes of fail-
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ure and implementing sound remedial steps are the common
sense courses of action.
From our response, the reader correctly inferred that verbal
hints at failed check valves causing catastrophic shaft failures are
not supported by much factual evidence. He found nothing in
the physics of how electric motors develop torque that could
justify the over-torque reports. He suspected that such an expla-
nation for a pump shaft failure was a convenient, but unverifi-
able, explanation, when identifying the real cause is somewhat
inconvenient. We essentially agreed, but gave him additional
food for thought.
LITERATURE CITED
1
Dufour, J. W. and W. E. Nelson, Centrifugal pump sourcebook, McGraw-Hill, New
York, New York, 1992.
2
Bloch, H. P., Pump wisdom: Problem solving for operators and specialists, John Wiley
& Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey, 2011.
3
Bloch, H. P. and A. R. Budris, Pump user’s handbook: Life extension, 4th edition,
The Fairmont Press, Lilburn, Georgia, 2013.
HEINZ P. BLOCH resides in Westminster, Colorado. His
professional career commenced in 1962 and included
long-term assignments as Exxon Chemical’s regional
machinery specialist for the US. He has authored over
650 publications, among them 19 comprehensive
books on practical machinery management, failure
analysis, failure avoidance, compressors, steam
turbines, pumps, oil-mist lubrication and practical
lubrication for industry. Mr. Bloch holds BS and MS
degrees in mechanical engineering. He is an ASME
life fellow and maintains registration as a professional
engineer in New Jersey and Texas.
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