Performance and unsteady flow field prediction of a centrifugal pump with CFD tools

Abstract EN

Numerical simulations on rotor-stator interactions in radial pumps are carried out to investigate the unsteady flow in the centrifugal pumps.

An extra attention is paid to pressure fluctuations effect on the blade and the stator surfaces.

Three different pump constructions are performed to study the rotor-stator interactions ; pump with volute casing, with Vanless diffuser and with Vaned diffuser.

The simulations are performed with different operating flow rates to examine their effects on the unsteady flow field.

CFD simulation of the rotor and the stator of a centrifugal pump has been performed using the commercial code FLUENT 6.3.

Flow was assumed to be three dimensional, viscous, and incompressible.

k-€ RNG turbulence model, with non equilibrium -wall functions was used.

Computational results show that a jet-wake flow structure is observed at the impeller outlet.

The higher pressure fluctuation on the blade is found to occur at the impeller trailing edge, on the pressure side.

Velocity and pressure fields were calculated for different flow rates, to obtain fully details in understanding of the highly complex flow interactions which occur in centrifugal pump.

Also a closed loop test rig is constructed to get the pump characteristic head flow curves to verify the numerical simulation.

Measured and calculated head-discharge characteristics for the examined pumps show similar very close trends.