Abstract
A Personal sampling pump tester, the Pumper Test, was developed to perform reliability tests and check performance of sampling pumps used for monitoring worker exposure to airborne materials. The flow rate of up to 15 personal sampling pumps can be determined by the Pump Tester. In typical use situations the pump tester runs for 8 hours with five or six pumps of one type, displaying a graph of flow rate over time for each of the pumps. While not continuous, the flow record for each pump contains up to 240 data points, which is sufficient to serve as a useful record of pump performance over long test periods. The system allows the data to be printed out or saved to disk. The flow rate graph for each pump is printed at the end of the test. The flow rate graph can be added to the maintenance and calibration record for the pump to document its performance. Using this equipment occasionally allows erratic pump performance to be documented which would otherwise go unnoticed. Such a check should be performed on a pump each time it is serviced, which will range from every 6 months to 2 years, depending on the type of pump and its usage. More formal studies allow the demonstration of the relative performance of different kinds of pumps under different conditions.
