The story of pumps, even more than the story of textile machinery, illustrates the dependence of industry on progress in scientific research. Many of the famous mechanical engineers of the eighteenth century were pump-makers, and although it is usually not possible to trace a direct line of descent from the first pump-making engineers to the great modern engineering firms, (1) Mather & Platt is something of an exception. Before William and Colin Mather took over the management of Salford Iron Works, their predecessors were makers of hydraulic machinery, including pumps for various purposes. Mather and Platt soon interested themselves in
centrifugal pumps “Arrived. at the works
6.a.m.”, wrote William Mather in his Diary in 1858,
“took round of shop, after which made experiments
with centrifugal pump, rigged up on shop boiler with
suction pipe inserted into a tub of water in fire hole,
delivery pipe to wooden box bolted to the top to receive
water”. (2) In 1866 there were orders for
only a few pumps, practically all reciprocating, but the
way had been prepared for subsequent expansion, and in
the years ahead the supply of centrifugal pumps was to
become a profitable side of the firms business. As early as 1857
the firm manufactured double-acting reciprocating pumps
driven by steam engines for lifting water from boreholes.
In the following twenty years various types of pumps were
made, such as horizontal three-throw ram pumps, rotary
pumps and centrifugal pumps for providing water supplies
and for use with textile machinery. The most
important invention, however, did not come until 1875
— Professor Osborne-Reynolds’ turbine pump made
for the engineering laboratory of the Owens College.
(3) Before that time pumps of the centrifugal type
but of low efficiency were used for raising water at low
heads. Reynolds produced a turbine pump of the series
type, fitted with guide vanes, and a separate cell for
each impeller. In his specification he stated that the
novelty of his invention “in the case of obtaining
motive power ... consists in repeating the action again
and again causing the fluid to traverse one or more
additional sets of moving passages alternating with fixed
passages.
In both
cases, that is, in obtaining motive power and in raising
and forcing fluids, instead of alternate sets of fixed
and moving passages, all the passages may be in motion,
but in that case the alternate sets of passages must move
in opposite directions. It is not necessary that the
several sets of moving passages should be connected with
or move round the same axis or shaft.”(1) Reynolds's
invention was the product of laboratory research (2)
and demonstrated his remarkable combination of gifts as
an engineer and a mathematical physicist, but before his
pump was actually produced by Mather & Platt there
was a considerable time lag. The theory of the pump
preceded its commercial exploitation, and even after the
firm began to produce Osborne-Reynolds pumps, theoretical
and commercial considerations some times diverged. The
“best efficiency”, as worked out by laboratory
engineers, did not always imply the most suitable
commercial design, and from the point of view of
industrial development, it was always true that
“against the requirements for the best theoretical
conversion of kinetic energy must be matched. the
allowable limits of dimensions conformable with
commercial possibilities”. (3) In
1893 Mather & Platt exploited the Mather-Reynolds
pump as a commercial proposition, and developed a series
of sizes for dealing with “duties” varying from
100 to 1600 gallons a minute against heads up to 180
feet. Some of these early pumps had a very long life.
After the end of the first World War one of them, of the
vertical spindle type, was still at work in an artesian
well in Russia, 100 foot deep, and from the time of its
installation had only once been brought to the surface
for examination, (4) Despite the efficiency of
these early examples of pump craftsmanship in the
1890’s, there was an attractive competitive design
on the continental market designed by Messrs. Sulzer
Brothers of Winterthur Switzerland. This firm supplied
centrifugal type pumps of multi-stage design to a mining
company in Spain about 1896. In 1900 Mather & Platt entered into an agreement with its Swiss rival that both firms would manufacture the same type of multi-stage turbine pump, embodying the several improvements worked out by Sulzers. The casing of the pump was constructed in one piece, with intermediate pieces, guide vanes and impellers put in from one end. The impellers were arranged back to back to reduce the amount of end-thrust set up in the pump. The new design was an attractive one and a sharing of markets seemed a feasible commercial proposition, but Sulzers had at their disposal in Switzerland the high-speed electric motors which enabled the pumps coupled to them to be supplied at low cost. In 1904 the arrangement between the two firms to produce the same type of pump came to an end by mutual consent.
Mather &
Platt then continued to develop the high-lift turbine
pump based on the original Osborne-Reynolds design with
all the eyes of the impellers facing the same way. This
high-lift turbine pump became the main product of the
Pump Department and present day pumps retain the feature.
Under the capable supervision of Alan E. L.Chorlton,
lasting improvements were made to the middle-body and
during several years of experiment various designs were
tried for balancing the endthrust. In 1904 a
hand-adjusted needle valve was employed to produce the
required balancing pressure. A mechanically operated
needle valve actuated by the axial movement of the pump
spindle was invented two years later, and finally a small
disc valve was incorporated with the balance piston which
eliminated the use of the needle valve altogether. An
automatic disc-balancing device was introduced in 1912
and finally, three years later, the single disc balance
valve was introduced in which the proportioning of the
diameter enabled the hydraulic thrust to be balanced
automatically. At the same time the shaft was extended at
the free end and carried in an external bearing, which
made for increased reliability. Before 1911
centrifugal pumps were manufactured in a department known
as “Engine Pump and Water Purification”. In
addition to centrifugal pumps this department undertook
the manufacture of reciprocating borehole pumps; open
vertical marine slow-speed type and small enclosed high
speed steam engines; surface and jet condensers; filters
for water supplies, water softening, purification and
sewage treatment plant, but when the department was
transferred to Park Works in 1911, the modern Pump
Department was formed and the manufacture of these
products was gradually discontinued. There were various
reasons, technical and economic, for the dropping of the
old lines of production. Markets were changing and
engineering was becoming more specialised making it
apparent to those in charge of the fortunes of the
company that concentration on centrifugal pumps would
make for great technical improvement in design. In 1911 the
Pump Department was concentrating on three designs, the
high-lift multi-stage turbine pump, suitable for
municipal water supply, hydraulic pressure, colliery
drainage, and boiler feed; the high-lift single-stage
turbine pump for general service; and the low-lift
turbine pump, for condenser circulation and sewage and
other services operating on low heads. The low-lift
turbine pump was superseded in 1911 by the Monovane pump,
which was of the single-stage type, having only one guide
vane, and which gave higher efficiency for those low lift
duties. Each pump was manufactured individually and
designed to suit the condition, with the result that the
cost of production was very high. In spite of this many
important contracts were secured and the satisfactory
performance of pumps supplied did much to establish the
name of Mather & Platt as pump makers. The type of
job carried out by the firm in this period before 1914 is
best illustrated from two tasks actually accomplished. In
1908 it installed for the Montreal Water and Power
Company a three-stage high-lift turbine pump, direct
coupled to an alternating current motor. The normal
“duty” of the pump was 10,500 gallons of water
per minute against a total head of 405 feet, the speed of
the set being 465 r.p.m. This pump, which weighed 65
tons, was the largest built at that time, having branches
of 24” bore. In 1912 the Birchenwood. Colliery
Company was supplied with two high-lift turbine pumps,
direct-coupled to alternating current motors of 850
b.h.p. for a “duty” of 1800 gallons per minute
against a total head of 950 feet when running at a speed
of 970 r.p.m. These pumps were the largest sets of this
type working underground at the time of installation. The scale of
operations in the Pump Department was relatively small in
1914. There was still plenty of scope for new ideas. Many
of the existing designs needed substantial revision, new
fields of practical application had to be explored, more
efficient systems of production were required, and more
orders from outside were necessary if the department was
to expand. After 1915, the economic and technical sides
of the pump business both began to show marked
improvement, and the firm now boasts one of the largest
centrifugal pump businesses in the world. It was
realised at the beginning of this period of transition
that of the designs then available the diffuser type pump
was the only one which would be suitable in a world which
was fast learning the advantages of the centrifugal pump.
The obvious advantages of the horizontally split casing
design were appreciated and experience with this type had
been obtained in the manufacture and performance of a
multi-stage split-casing turbine pump built for boiler
feeding in 1909. The difficulties of construction were
such that for high-pressure work a pump of the cell, type
was preferred, but the advantages of the split-casing
design for low-pressure units were not overlooked. When new designs
were considered the split casing was adopted for moderate
heads and several ranges of pumps were developed for
low-lifts and medium-lifts. These technical names were
cumbersome in use and it was decided to start the
‘vane’ series of descriptions. The products of
Mather & Platt’s Pump Department became known
throughout the world by the names PLUR0VANE, MEDIVANE,
L0N0VANE and S0L0VANE. A
survey of probable demand was made. Ranges of pumps for
all duties were developed in a manner, which allowed for
standardisation, with the advantage of
interchangeability. Many of the smaller sizes were then
and are now produced in quantity and in
“batches” carried in stock. The soundness of
this policy was soon established; consequently it has
been followed and extended to larger sizes and other
types of pumps now manufactured by the company. This
standardisation meant re-organisation of the production
department, the introduction of modem machine tools, and
a system of working to jigs and close tolerances; but it
did not imply any change in the quality of services
offered. As in other departments the firm continued to
pride itself on the production of individual designs for
individual orders. There
has been a considerable technical development in the
design of pumps since 1915.(1) The multi-stage
pump replaced the reciprocating pump for mine drainage,
for engineers were quick to realise its possibilities and
to gain confidence in its reliability. It now holds a
practically unequalled position in high pressure pumping,
and since the introduction of the “Stable
Characteristic Boiler Feed Pump” it has been applied
to works like power stations, where it previously could
not have been used. Only in the case of unusually high
boiler pressure does the reciprocating pump become a
serious competitor of the centrifugal type. (2)
In the oil industry too, where reciprocating pumps would
have been used almost automatically forty years ago, the
place of the centrifugal pump is assured. In 1925 Mather
& Platt Ltd. started negotiations with a leading
continental firm, which manufactured a combined
single-shaft steam turbo-pump. Steam turbine driven feed
pumps had been made as early as 1904, but this was the
first time that a range of such unity had been
contemplated. Owing to the increase in boiler pressure
and capacities, however, the combined arrangement soon
became unsuitable and it was decided to produce a range
of turbines, which would incorporate, as far as possible,
the advantages of the larger turbines used for the main
turbo-alternator sets, and to couple these directly to
duplicates of pumps installed for electric driving. This
policy has been justified and turbines up to 1600 b.h.p.
have been supplied for driving boiler feed pumps. Technical
progress in pump making since 1915 has been accompanied
by commercial expansion. Indeed the increasing demand for
pumps to meet changed market requirements has provided a
challenge to technical progress. Just as improvements in
pumping were necessary before the early eighteenth
century coal industry could develop and expand, so in the
twentieth century “industrial development”,
based on oil and electricity, pumping has played an
important part. Oil technology demands high-powered
pumping stations along the pipelines, and since 1919
Mather & Platt Ltd. have supplied Plurovane pumps for
the main pipelines of the major Oil Companies. The pipe
lines which connected strategic points in the United
Kingdom during the Second World War and the famous
“Pluto” (pipe line under the ocean) project
were also installed with Plurovane pumps.
These
pumps were widely adopted in the chemical industry and
for mine drainage. Before the First World War pumps were
installed in South Africa, for instance, for the mines
and power stations, essential to the economic development
of the country. Pumps of the axial flow type were also
supplied to Egypt for land drainage. Overseas orders
concerned with the economic development of foreign
countries were of special importance in the 1930s. Indeed
conditions in the market for pumps reflect the inducement
to invest not only of businessmen, but also of the
managers of public utilities and of projectors of
large-scale national enterprises. In the middle
‘twenties the depression in the colliery districts,
where the firm normally received a considerable amount of
business, was counterbalanced by an expansion of
municipal undertakings. (1) In
the ‘thirties the demand from abroad rose with the
recovery from the Great Depression of 1931. A staff of
fully trained engineers, with a detailed knowledge of
foreign conditions, enabled the firm to make the best use
of its opportunities in the export market. The slogan
“satisfaction or your money back” adopted by
the Pump department was in 1915 to demonstrate the
company’s insistence not only on quality, but also
on service.
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A History of Mather & Platt
Ltd.