Expensive lessons for one of my industrial customers when they recently tried to run water thru a pump and preheat-er unit at there plant. The equipment is normally used to heat up and transport oil thru the plant but they had a large amount of water they needed to preheat and they figured well if the unit heats oil it should also heat water. Wrong the end result is a damaged pump and heating coils which you can see in picture is cracked in half and since this operates at 480 volts Ac 3 phase it could have been deadly decision as well.
If the operator had not properly grounded the portable unit before running it.
Good thing for him he did ground it and fuses blew before he was electrocuted or unit exploded.
Now no where on this heating unit or pump does it say do not run with water in it . Which I fault the manufacturer for it should be clearly stated on both pieces oil transfer only.
Plant personnel are not trained engineers who design equipment and they never gave it a second thought to contact the manufacturer to see if it was OK . common thinking of most people it should do both. So this hazard needs to be marked.
The problem of running water thru units made for oil only is that with the pump the oil as it runs thru the pump keeps the pump lubricated. there are no external bearings etc you would normally lube like you do on big water pumps. same way for the fin heater the fins are designed to operate at a certain temperature and certain volume of oil passing them water does not pass heat efficiently as oil there by the units failed early.
Do they make such units that can do both? absolutely but they have to be specifically designed to do both. Which these units where not.
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