Emulating the pulsating action of the human heart could increase the efficiency of everything from oil pipelines to central heating systems
By Matthew Sparkes
6 September 2023
Pumping fluids, such as oil, through pipes consumes significant amounts of energy
Mike Mareen/Shutterstock
A rhythmic pumping method inspired by the human heart could slash the energy used to move fluids through domestic and industrial pipes.
Forcing fluids through such systems – be it moving oil and gas from drilling rigs to refineries or circulating water in our home heating systems – is estimated to use between 10 and 15 per cent of the world’s electricity supply.
Turbulence inside pipes causes friction, which vastly inflates the energy needed to pump liquids. Previous attempts to reduce turbulence have included complex coatings on the inside of pipes, which would be costly to roll out on a wide scale.
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Björn Hof at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria says copying the human heart is a natural starting point to address this problem because it has the benefit of millions of years of evolution. He and his colleagues discovered that pumping liquids through a pipe in pulses – much like the human heart moves blood – can reduce the friction in the pipe and therefore also the energy consumed.
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To find out more, the researchers laced water with reflective particles and pumped it through transparent pipes while shining a laser into them, allowing them to visualise the swirls and eddies in the liquid.