High Tech Process Equipment
1. The Human Body
If you compare the human body to the most sophisticated process equipment we use in the manufacturing of chemicals, biologic, pharma compounds along with many other products, it is quite evident the human body has it hands down, obviously a higher power at work.
On average day the human heart beats 115,000 times per day, everyday all day.
We have all heard the human heart referred to as a “pump” but what kind of pump would it be classified as? There are many man made pumps used in industries, which could fit into two basic types, positive displacement and dynamic.
Positive displacement simply stated “displaces” by applying energy ,a larger volume of fluid into a smaller cavity, thus increasing the pressure. Examples of PD pumps are, lobe, double diaphragm, peristaltic.
A dynamic pump takes a fluid and spins it (also by applying energy) to increase the velocity, thus creating pressure. A few examples of a dynamic pump are centrifugal and axial designs.
The human heart, in my mind, is most like a double diaphragm pump which uses a series of moving wall cavities, check valves, to pump fluid in one direction, producing flow and pressure. Problems arise in both our human body and in process piping lines when the internal pressure is two high or to low.
The man made high tech way to regulate pressure is done using a intricate series of sensors, regulating valves, and a computer called PLC. The system then sends a 4-20 ma signal to controller which regulates the energy to the pump. Using the double diaphragm analogy of comparing the heart to a double diaphragm (DD) pump, simply by controlling the energy to the pump, increases or decreases the quantity of stroke cycles thus achieving the desired affect.
But how does the human heart adjust the pressure in our bodies ?
The human body has its own sensors built in to walls of the arteries which send signals to control body’s blood pressure. There are several mechanisms by which our bodies reacts to those signals;
- 1-heart can speed up or slow down,
- 2-arteries/ veins expand and narrow,
- 3-kidneys produce more or less urine,(urine is mainly water, which it gets from the blood) take more water out, blood pressure lowers, reduce the removal the water in blood, pressure rises, amazing!
If you start to consider the complicated functions our bodies perform vs. man made systems , its not even close, human body wins all the time.
