Practical talk for pump and water systems.
Pumps & Systems Podcast brings technical guests into practical conversations about pumps, drives, and the systems around them. Recent episodes move from digital twins and wastewater analyzers to sealing design, pipeline rehabilitation, drives, hydrogen, carbon capture, and water access.
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Pumps & Systems Podcast is an industry interview series for people who think about pumps as part of bigger mechanical, electrical, environmental, and municipal systems. Its center of gravity is practical engineering. Recent conversations examine AI and digital twins in water, high-pressure and high-temperature sealing, pipeline rehabilitation, real-time wastewater analyzers, global water access, carbon capture, hydrogen technologies, eddy current drives, variable frequency drives, active front end drives, and 18-pulse drives. The show is structured plainly. A topic is introduced, a specialist explains the working context, and the conversation turns toward trade-offs that matter in plants, utilities, and field installations. That gives the episodes a grounded pace. Instead of treating AI as magic, the water technology discussion returns to connected data, clean inputs, model drift, compliance, human checkpoints, chemical dosing, energy use, and sustainability. Instead of treating seals as isolated parts, the sealing episode stresses surface finish, temperature, pressure, material choice, squeeze, gland fill, shear strength, and the full system around the seal. Infrastructure episodes have the same practical shape. Pipeline rehabilitation is framed through aging pipes, limited public funding, trenchless options, bend navigation, inspection tools, wall thickness, stress in plastic pipes, and find-and-fix decisions. Wastewater analytics get similar treatment, from UV-254 and BTEX monitoring to diagnostics that could help operators identify instrument problems sooner. The show also makes room for the human side of water systems. The Surge for Water conversation connects pumps, wells, latrines, local labor, maintenance training, community ownership, and long-term monitoring to the larger crisis of safe water access. Energy transition episodes stay technical rather than promotional. Carbon capture and hydrogen are discussed through existing infrastructure, tax credits, pilot projects, scale-up costs, standards, and equipment transfer from oil and gas. Drive episodes compare technologies by footprint, horsepower range, harmonic reduction, grid conditions, generators, and power quality. The tone is measured and accessible. It assumes listeners can handle technical language, but it keeps asking what the information means in practice. For plant managers, engineers, operators, and maintenance professionals, that combination is the value. The show makes specialized equipment decisions feel concrete, consequential, and easier to discuss with the right experts.
Made for: This show suits engineers, operators, maintenance professionals, plant managers, utility teams, and technical staff working around pumps, drives, water, wastewater, sealing, and industrial equipment. It is especially useful for listeners who want applied context, not abstract trend talk.
What sets it apart: The show connects component-level detail to system-level consequences: data quality, compliance risk, energy use, maintenance, infrastructure funding, inspection, and long-term operation. Its interviews stay close to real operating conditions and the decisions that follow from them.
Pumps & Systems is the voice of the international pump and rotating equipment industry. As the leading media brand for pump users worldwide since 1993, it delivers relevant industry news and powerful technical information to a total average monthly audience of 187,173* managers, engineers, operators and other maintenance professionals. Pumps & Systems is the only North American trade publication that covers pumps and related equipment in every issue. We deliver timely information and pump industry news through our e-newsletters—Pump Users Digest and Products for Pump Users. *web traffic + e-news subscribers + print & pass-along, minus known overlap (Sources: Omeda + BPA)Pumps & Systems provi…
A pipe bend changes your repair options, and this is where you learn why.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clear, practical look at how trusted data and digital twins can sharpen water treatment decisions.
AI and digital twins are presented as practical tools for making water treatment decisions less wasteful, so long as the data beneath them is reliable.
A practical review of how flexible rehabilitation and better inspection shape pressure-pipe decisions.
Pipeline rehabilitation comes through as a practical infrastructure challenge, shaped as much by diagnosis and funding as by engineering. Chris McDonald of CPM Pipelines explains how flexible systems have widened the options beyond straight runs, letting crews pull through most…
A grounded look at light-based wastewater analyzers and AI-enabled diagnostics.
Wastewater treatment comes into focus as a real-time measurement challenge, with Brittany Baker explaining how analyzers use light, wavelengths, and different sampling formats to identify what is in the water.
Water access depends on what happens after the pump is installed.
Safe water becomes a technology story once the focus moves past drilling a well. This Pumps & Systems Podcast episode on Surge for Water frames global water access through implementation: wells, pumps, local labor, maintenance, and the agreements that make a community…
Practical safety talk for oil and energy work.
Industrial tech without the hype fog.
Reliability practice for working industrial teams.
Manufacturing conversations from Pittsburgh robots to Kansas City sausage.
Kevin Lissick says digital twins and LLMs only work when water data is connected and housed in one place, because 'garbage in, garbage out.' Tom Baer and Lissick define a digital twin as a software copy of a wastewater or drinking-water plant that can model aeration basins, influent, and effluent.
Jeremy Black discusses the factors affecting seal performance in high-pressure, high-temperature environments, emphasizing the importance of understanding system parameters.
Tom Baer of Pumps and Systems magazine interviews Chris McDonald of CPM Pipelines about pipeline rehabilitation systems, using AWWA class one through class four to separate coatings, semi-structural liners, and structural replacements.
Brittany Baker of ABB explains how real-time analyzers help wastewater plants control pH, chlorine, dissolved oxygen, and nutrient removal instead of waiting on lab samples.
Pumps & Systems Podcast episode 116 opens with Shilpa Alva saying 2 billion people lack safe water, 4 billion lack toilets, and 3 billion lack soap.
Weston Bennington warns that replacing a stator while retaining a worn rotor can shorten the new stator's life because rotor wear reduces compression.
Tom Baer interviews Tom Decker, a water and wastewater consultant with nearly 50 years in the field, about infrastructure funding.
Frank Ma estimates the CCS centrifugal pump market could exceed $2 billion by 2040, growing at over 20% annually.
Experts from Dynomatic discuss the differences between eddy current drives and variable frequency drives for pumping applications.
Rob Fenton and Austin Scudder of Eden compare active front end and 18-pulse drives to help determine the best solution for your application.
Drew Champlin interviews Tim Albers of Nidec Motor Corporation about his 26-year career in the pump and motor industry, sharing insights and advice for younger professionals.
Host Drew Champlin interviews Greg Gammon about the upcoming Turbomachinery & Pump Symposia and previews the August issue of Pumps & Systems magazine.
Host Drew Champlin previews the July 2022 issue of Pumps and Systems, including interviews from the EASA conference and profiles of industry veterans.