Project may open floodgates

Spaans Babcock will install eight 20m screws at Yorkshire Water’s pumping station in Hull

A project to build a pumping station in Hull equipped with the largest screw pumps in the world started last month and could be the first of many similar schemes following the severe flooding earlier this year.

Manufacturer Spaans Babcock will install eight 20m screws at Yorkshire Water’s surface-water pumping station at Bransholme Lagoon, for engineering contractor Black and Veatch after planning permission was granted by Hull City Council in March.

The screws – between 2.1 and 3.75m wide and weighing more than 55 tonnes each – will be driven by a 560kW main-drive motor. The six largest screws will have the capacity to lift 880 gallons of water a second, enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool every two minutes.

The pumping station is part of a £3.7 million upgrade of the lagoon at Bransholme to allow excess water to run into the River Hull during emergencies. The upgrade was started in 2009 following severe flooding in the area during June 2007, when 30,000 people were evacuated from their homes. Hull also experienced severe flooding last December, when a tidal surge struck the city. Mark Brown, sales director at Spaans Babcock, said: “The biggest challenge is the large scale of these pumps. It’s taken teams of engineers here, in Holland and at Arup four years of modelling and simulation work to optimise the design so that the flow of the water feeds the pumping station correctly.”

The installation of the pumps will start by May 2015, with completion expected by August. Contractor Black and Veatch is currently performing civil works at the site.

Brown added: “We’ve got a lot of similar pumps for drainage all around the UK, but nothing on this scale. We’re working with other people to install similar stations in other locations around the UK after the flooding this winter. There’s a much stronger requirement now.”

Archimedes screw pumps are able to move large volumes of water more efficiently than other types of pumps. They are also favoured for these types of applications because their large flights and clearances allow the screws to handle the debris often found in storm water without blocking. They can be run dry so that they can be tested periodically without water.