Piston pump manufacturers. often demand pumped liquids are clean due to tight tolerances.  In oilfield dirty service piston pumps are heavily used.  What makes it ok, or do they just accept high fail rates.

the problem with piston pumps with dirty service is the suction and discharge ball. for dirty service in my opinion the best solution is pcp.

There are special coatings available that can improve the MTBF of piston pumps. We do not make them and our solution has been to look at our twin screw technology which is much more resistent in dirty oil applications. We have some of the nastiest stuff you can imagine in Alberta and our pumps handle it very well and very successfully. If you are interetsed in learning more please visit our webiste.

BR

Leo

Main problem with piston pumps is coagulated dirty stuff getting lodged in suction/discharge valve space and reducing volumetric efficiency of the pump. Within the limitation of head generated, I would recommend pcp or screw pumps over piston pumps for dirty services.

If pressure to be genreted is very high or material getting lodged in suction/discharge valve space is not a problems, piston pumps can be used with suitable selection of material of construction.

if thee pressure and the temperature is not to high, the best solution is pc pumps. TSP is a solution if the pressure and the temperature is higher but the price is higher too

thanks for the comments but i think some of you are misunderstanding the question. I am not looking for comparative technologies to piston pumps, I am looking for comparative differences between different piston and plunger pumps that allow some to be used in nasty service where others are definately clean service only. as far as I can tell they all should have the same weakness which is tight tolerances required to allow them to create the high pressure, Hard materials can be used but sand is the nastiest contaminant and in my experience silica particles eat everything. Eg. what makes gardner denver and nov better for oilfield service than say Cat or Hammelman?

I would say the answer is their experience and their take away's from previous services, installations, etc. in Alberta (in particular) and how to cope / adapt with such an environment whereas Cat or Hammelman likely have not. Valves also become an issue (they become a real pain to do maintenance on in the field).