Episode 62: Improving Energy Efficiency & Reliability of Centrifugal Pumps for Clean Water

Hilary Johnson is a Ph.D. candidate in mechanical engineering at MIT and fellow at J-WAFS. Hilary is working on an integral and underappreciated part of our daily lives – centrifugal pumps. Centrifugal pumps are an affordable and common way many municipal systems distribute clean water, but the pumps are far from efficient and consume the same amount of energy 56 Hoover Dams could produce in a year. As the pressure of climate change pushes for more reliable and efficient systems to deliver clean water, Hilary has designed a new pump that fluctuates with water flow drastically improving the current systems. Hilary’s broader research includes building a suite of design tools to improve the energy efficiency of pump systems. Hilary joined the podcast to talk about the pump she designed and how it came about. She addresses what problem is it solving for the user and In what ways will it make a user’s job easier. Hilary also addresses the question about if will appeal to users in the U.S. and abroad – if so, will applications be different from one country to another for any reason? Other topics discussed: Why is there newly focused attention on centrifugal pumps and a need for improvement? Growth of the centrifugal pump market Other considerations engineers should be thinking of in regards to the energy efficiency and reliability of centrifugal pumps to distribute clean water? Email podcast host Drew Champlin at [email protected].