GIWW West Closure Complex

Gulf Inter-coastal Water Way West Closure Complex in New Orleans. This it the world's largest pump project and will be used to protect New Orleans from future hurricane flood damage.

[@DatCityBoy504]

I actually had the opportunity to work for the company that maintains and operates it today. SOUTHEAST LOUISIANA FLOOD PROTECTION-WEST. This project is on a scale like no other.

[@davida1hiwaaynet]

I have been fortunate enough to visit this station. It is an awe-inspiring site. The pump station is so large you can barely see from one end of the engine hall to the other. Truly an attest to the level that our engineering skills have reached.

[@johnfranklin1955]

800,000 GPM, Awesome!!

[@spacecat7247]

@ 13k gal. per pump, per second? Not too shabby. Would like to look at the pump delivery curve.

[@RJ1999x]

Something is not adding up here on their calculations. A free flowing 120" diameter pipe, the size of their pump, only flows 176,250 GPM of water at 0 pressure, at 4# it would pump roughly double, or 352,500 GPM. SO there combined 11 pump GPM total is 1,938,750 for the complex. For them to make 800000 GPM they would have to build roughly 20# of pressure, which I am sure is achievable, but wold be foolish seeing as pressure requires Horse power, and the demand on the engine would be tremendous. So combined pumping capacity makes it the largest pumping station, and yes technology is great, however when compared to the Milwaukee Pumping station built by Edward P Allis & co ( the fore runner of Allis Chalmers) who built the first propeller style pump in 1888 which pumped 324,000 GPM at half speed, with one single pump, this complex is not that big of an achievement . Allis single pump had the capacity at full speed to pump 1/3 the water by itself it takes 3.6 modern pumps to duplicate, that doesnt seem like progress in 124 yrs. Still they are moving ALOT of water!!!

[@RJ1999x]

And for the record 128 years later the pump is still moving water in MIlwaukee, it was converted from steam engine to electric.

[@RJ1999x]

Doing some more reading about your complex it says each pump has a 5000hp diesel engine to run them, Allis moved all that water with a 450hp electric , converted from steam, seems like 1888 design is much more more efficient.

[@spiker84]

This does raise a good point. By no means am I an expert on either this pump house or the Milwaukee one, but I did used to service large engines. Large diesels can be quite efficient; if I remember correctly, most of the CAT engines that produce 5,000+ horsepower did so at about 850 - 1000 RPM. Similar engines to the ones in this pumphouse are used in ships, and can comfortably run at peak torque/horsepower for a very long time without adverse effect on the motor.

[@shooter7a]

RJ, you need to brush up on your pump system engineering skills. There are 3 components to pump head in a system. #1 - Physical lift. This is the intake water level, to the discharge water level. In this case, the open diffuser discharge design (as dictated by the US Army Corps of Engineers pump station design) results in 18 +/- feet of physical lift. Without a station drawing showing water levels you have no way to calculate this. #2 - Friction. This is all you were looking at. #3 - Velocity head. This is the work to accelerate the fluid masses. With an open discharge, all velocity head is lost. These pumps are 781,000 GPM at about 23' head, and over 90% efficiency. This was a competitively bid project, with multiple major mfgs competing for the contract. Do you think ITT AC did not try to win this contract? Please leave this to the professionals.

[@johnkosheluk1041]

what horse power engine

[@RDC_Autosports]

john Kosheluk 5000@1000 rpm... they run em in the 8-900 rpm range, each Cat C280 3600 series burns 250 GPH x 11 pumps