Influence of Cross-Sectional Flow Area of Annular Volute Casing on Transient Characteristics of Ceramic Centrifugal Pump

The annular volute is typically used in a slurry pump to reduce the collisions between solid particles and the volute tongue and to achieve a better resistance to blocking. However, only limited studies regarding annular volutes are available, and there is no systematic design method for annular volutes. In this study, the influence of volute casing cross-sectional flow area on the hydraulic loss, pressure pulsations, and radial force under varying working conditions in a centrifugal ceramic pump are discussed in detail. Experimental tests were conducted to validate the numerical results. The results indicated that, when the volute casing flow area increases, the hydraulic performance decreases marginally under the rated working conditions, but increases at the o-design points, specifically under large flow condition. However, the volute casing with a larger flow area has a wider high-e ciency region. In addition, the increase in the volute casing flow area will decrease the pressure pulsations in the volute, regardless of the working condition, and decrease the radial force on the shaft, therefore, providing an improved pump operational stability. It is anticipated that this study will be of benefit during the design of annular volutes.

Study on Energy Conversion Characteristics in Volute of Pump as Turbine

A volute is a curved funnel with cross-sectional area increasing towards the discharge port.The volute of a centrifugal pump is the casing hosting the fluid being pumped by the impeller.In Pump-as-turbine devices(PAT),vice versa the volute plays the role of energy conversion element.In the present analysis,this process is analyzed using CFD.The results show that in the contraction section of volute the conversion between dynamic pressure energy and static pressure energy essentially depends on the reduction of flow area,while in the spiral section,frictional losses also play a significant role.From the throat to the end of the volute,the flow decreases in a wave-like manner.

Effect of bionic mantis shrimp groove volute on vortex pump pressure pulsation

In order to reduce pressure pulsation of vortex pumps,the mantis shrimp was chosen as biological prototype and a bionic engineering model was developed from its abdominal segment grooves.Bionic mantis shrimp groove volute vortex pump models with different numbers of grooves were developed,and numerical simulation methods were used to calculate the models to study the effects of the volute grooves on the pressure pulsation of a vortex pump.The results show that a bionic groove volute could effectively improve the pressure pulsation of a vortex pump outlet,and reduce the pressure pulsation around the pump’s tongue and other internal points.The pressure pulsation under different conditions is impacted by shaft frequency and blade frequency.The bionic groove structure has little effect on the external characteristics of the pump,but could improve the static pressure,velocity distribution,and vortex structure of the flow field.Additionally,pressure pulsation of the whole vortex pump is reduced.

Simulation of volute tongue of small-size centrifugal compressor

A high speed and small mass-flow-rate centrifugal compressor with original and modified volute tongue shape was simulated by 3D viscous Navier-Stokes equations.A sharp and a round tongue of volute were modeled to compare their pressure ratios and efficiency characteristics.The flow fields around volute tongues were investigated;the velocity and pressure distributions of volute inlet were studied by unsteady simulation.Static pressure fluctuation near volute tongue was monitored and transformed into amplitude spectrum to identify blade passing frequency influence.The results show that the tongue simplification can cause certain difference on pressure ratio and efficiency.The pressure and velocity distribution of volute inlet indicate obvious circumferential distortion due to volute tongue especially at low mass flow rate.In addition,the static pressure pulsation of volute inlet and the noise level in diffuser and volute increase significantly under low mass flow operating condition.

A Study on the Unsteady Flow Characteristics and Energy Conversion in the Volute of a Pump-as-Turbine Device

To study the unsteady flow and related energy conversion process in the volute of a pump-as-turbine(PAT)device,six different working conditions have been considered.Through numerical calculation,the spatio-temporal variation of static pressure,dynamic pressure,total pressure and turbulent energy dissipation have been determined in each section of the volute.It is concluded that the reduction of the total power of two adjacent sections of the PAT volute is equal to the sum of the power lost by the fluid while moving from one section to the other and the power output from the two adjacent sections.For a fixed flow rate,the percentage of static pressure energy at the outlet of the PAT is roughly similar to that of the corresponding volute section,and both show a gradually increasing trend.The turbulent dissipation rate on each section of the PAT volute displays a similar a spatio-temporal behavior for different flow rates.

Design and Numerical Simulation on Coupled Flow Field of Radial Turbine with Air-Inlet Volute

As one of the core components of turbocharger or micro-turbine, radial turbine has the features of small size and high rotation speed. In order to explore the design method and flow mechanism of the turbine with a volute, a centimeter-scale radial turbine with a vaneless air-inlet volute was designed and simulated numerically to investigate the characteristics of the coupled flow field. The results show that the wheel efficiency of single passage computation without the volute is 80.1%. After accounting for the factors of the loss caused by the volute and the interaction between each passage, the performance is more accurate according to the whole flow passage computation with the volute. High load region gathers at the mid-span and the efficiency declines to 76.6%. The performance of the volute whose structure angle of the trapezoid section is equal to 70 degree is better. Unlike uniform inlet condition in single passage, more appropriate inlet flow for the impeller is provided by the rectification effect of the volute in full passage calculation. Flow parameters are distributed more evenly along the blade span and are generally consistent between each passage at the outlet of the turbine.

CFD Investigation of the Influence of Volute Geometrical Variations on Hydrodynamic Characteristics of Circulator Pump

Improper design of volute geometry can be the main cause that leads to unsteady pressure pulsation and radial force in pumps. Therefore, it is important to understand the influence of volute geometrical parameters on hydrodynamic characteristics of pump and the mechanism. However, the existing studies are limited to investigate the influence of only one or two volute geometrical parameters each time, and a systematic study of the influence of the combinations of different volute geometrical parameters on the pump＇s hydrodynamic characteristics is missing. In this paper, a study on the understanding of the influence of volute geometrical variations on hydrodynamic characteristics of a high speed circulator pump by using computational fluid dynamics（CFD） technology is presented. Five main volute geometrical parameters D3, A8, a0, j0 and Rt are selected and 25 different volute configurations are generated by using design of experiments（DOE） method. The 3D unsteady flow numerical simulations, which are based on the SST k-w turbulence model and sliding mesh technique provided by CFX, are executed on the 25 different volute configurations. The hydraulic performance, pressure pulsation and unsteady radial force inside the pump at design condition are obtained and analyzed. It has been found that volute geometrical parameters D3 and A8 are major influence factors on hydrodynamic characteristics of the pump, while a0, j0 and Rt are minor influence factors. The minimum contribution from both D3 and A8 is 58% on head, and maximum contribution from both D3 and A8 is 90% on pressure pulsation. Regarding the pressure pulsation intensity, two peaks can be found. One is in the tongue area and the other is in the diffusor area. The contributions are around 60% from tongue and 25% from diffusor, respectively. The amplitude of pressure pulsation has a quadratic polynomial functional relationship with respect to D3/D2 and A8/A（10）, and fluctuating level of radial force has a quadratic polynomial functional relationship with respect to D3/D2. While for the other volute parameters a0, j0 and Rt, no special function has been found related to pressure pulsation and radial force. The presented work could be a useful guideline in engineering practice when designing a circulator pump with low hydrodynamic force.

Optimization of Gas Turbine Exhaust Volute Flow Loss

The exhaust volute is a device that can change the exhaust direction of the ship’s gas turbine to reduce the flow loss of the high-temperature and high-speed turbine exhaust gas in the box-type exhaust volute,thereby improving its power output performance.This paper first investigates the internal flow field characteristics of the exhaust volute via numerical simulation and reveals the main source of the internal resistance loss of the volute.On the premise of not affecting the installation size of the volute and matching it with other components in the cabin,the design scheme of volute bottom shunt and volute chamfer are then optimized in accordance with the flow characteristics inside the volute.Numerical simulation results show that the partial flow structure at the bottom of the volute can effectively improve the low-velocity region and the vortex flow at the bottom of the volute,and the chamfered angle scheme can control the regular expansion and compression of the airflow.When the volute adopts the appropriate chamfer angle and the bottom split-flow structure,the total pressure loss can be reduced by 19.6%,and the static pressure recovery coefficient can be increased by 42.05%.

Application of New Type Pre-classification Hydrocyclone with Centrifugal Volute in Grinding Process

Hydrocyclone is widely used in closed-circuit grinding process. However, in the first classification operation of coarse particles with high pulp density, the shortcomings of traditional cyclone are that the grinding cycle load is much high, the apex of cyclone is easily to be blocked and classification efficiency is less. Specifically, the problems of traditional cyclone used in grinding process are as follows： （1） Mill utilization factor is low and its handling capacity is small; （2） Coarse particles mixing in cyclone overflow affects the following separation process and fine particles mixing in underflow causes over-grinding, which affects the total recovery rate of valuable minerals; （3） High grinding cycle load leads to large amount of high-density slurry pumping, which causes high energy consumption and severe wear of cyclones, pipelines and pumps. The applications of new type pre-classification hydrocyclone with centrifugal volute in the first classification process of iron mine mill are introduced in the paper. Pulp particles fed in the centrifugal volute are arranged in advance, so that coarse particles can be far away from the overflow pipe, which can reduce the short circuit current to avoid coarse particles entering overflow and improve classification efficiency and accuracy of cyclone. The strong points of the new cyclone in the coarse classification operation are as follows： （1） Finer overflow and less fine particles mixing in underflow improves classification efficiency more than 10%; （2） Lower ball mill load cycle improves ball capacity more than 10%; （3） Grinding energy consumption reduces by more than 20% and cyclone feed pump reduces energy consumption by more than 12%. In short, new type pre-classification cyclone with centrifugal volute solves the problems of fine particles mixing in underflow, high grinding cycle load and less classification efficiency in the coarse classification operation. Therefore, it has broad application prospects in ferrous metal and non-ferrous metal ore dressing plant.

The Numerical Simulation of Gas Turbine Inlet-Volute Flow Field

The structural and aerodynamic performance of the air inlet volute has an important influence on the performance of the gas turbine. On one hand, it requires the airflow flowing through inlet volute as even as possible, in order to reduce the pressure loss, to avoid a decrease in the effective output power and an increase of the fuel consumption rate of the internal combustion engine which indicate the inefficiency of the entire power unit;On the other hand, it requires the size of the inlet volute to be as small as possible in order to save mounting space and production costs. The thesis builds the structure model and develops flow fields numerical simulation of several different sizes of the inlet volutes. Further, the unreasonable aerodynamic structure is improved according to the flow field characteristics and thereby, a better aerodynamic performance of the inlet volute is obtained.

PREDICTION OF PUMP CHARACTERISTICS ACCORDING TO GEOMETRICAL PARAMETERS OF IMPELLER AND VOLUTE CASING

The geometrical parameters of impeller or volute casing (including guide vane ofmultistage pump) have a great effect on pump characteristics, but ultimately. the pump characteris-tics are determined by the geometrical parameters of impeller and volute casing cooperatively. Inthis essay the effect of impeller and volute casing on pump characteristics will be studiedquantitatvely from the angle cf optimal matching of them.

Effects of Bionic Volute Tongue on Aerodynamic Performance and Noise Characteristics of Centrifugal Fan Used in the Air-conditioner

The aerodynamic noise generated by the centrifugal fan used in the air conditioner is related to the comfort of human living and working,which can be controlled by using the bionic design and optimization of key components of centrifugal fan.Inspired by the non-smooth leading edge of long-eared owl wing,eight kinds of volute tongues are proposed to reduce the aerodynamic noise of a centrifugal fan.The flow and sound characteristics are numerically investigated by incorporating computational fluid dynamics and computational aero-acoustics.The optimal result exhibits a noise reduction of up to 1.5 dB with a slight increase in mass flow rate.The acoustic characteristics,with respect to the sound pressure level,power spectral density,and sound directivity are discussed.The time-domain,frequency-domain,and root mean square values of pressure fluctuation are monitored and analyzed to assess the unsteady flow interaction between the volute tongue and impeller.The intensity and scale of vortices in the centrifugal fan are suppressed in the upstream and downstream of the bionic volute tongue,and the turbulence effect on the surface of the volute tongue becomes even and weak.

Influence of various volute designs on volute overall performance

This paper discusses the influence of various volute designs on volute overall performance for a certain centrifu- gal compressor with both vaned and vaneless diffuser. Firstly, based on a free vortex flow pattern and the assumption of a circumferentially uniform flow at the design condition, a corrected method for volute design is adopted. By means of this method, corresponding to five geometric parameters affecting the volute overall performance, ten volute cases are designed. Secondly, the numerical simulation is employed and the detailed flow field and losses in different volutes with different geometric parameters are analyzed. The numerical investigation reveals that in all of the five geometric parameters, the radial location of the cross-section has the strongest influence on the performance of the volute. The non-uniform volute inlet formed by the upward vaned diffuser outlet flow is another important factor. Finally a relatively better value of D1/D2 is concluded.

A novel experimental method to evaluate the impact of volute's asymmetry on the performance of a high pressure ratio turbocharger compressor

All components of a turbocharger compressor are axisymmetric except for the spiral-shaped,gas-collecting overhung volute.In this paper,a novel experimental method to evaluate the impact of the volute's asymmetry on centrifugal compressor performance is proposed and applied to a high pressure-ratio turbocharger compressor.This method can isolate the impact of the volute's asymmetry on the compressor performance for the first time.Experiments prove the considerable impact of the volute's asymmetry on the compressor performance,especially the stability and efficiency.The impact of the volute's asymmetry on compressor stability correlates with rotational speed and thus with the pressure ratio,constricting the stable flow range by up to 47 percent and decreasing the maximum efficiency by 4.8 percent at the design speed.The results provide evidence to exploit the potential of intrinsic non-axisymmetric flow induced by asymmetric volute to improve the performance of turbocharger compressor with a high pressure ratio.

Effect of the volute tongue cut on pressure pulsations of a low specific speed centrifugal pump

The volute tongue,as the crucial component inducing rotor-stator interaction,is detrimental to unsteady pressure pulsations of centrifugal pumps.In the present paper,to investigate the effect of the volute tongue cut on pressure pulsations of a low specific speed centrifugal pump,three volute tongues are obtained through twice cuts,named cases 1,2,3.Twenty measuring points are evenly mounted on periphery of the volute casing to obtain unsteady pressure signals using high response transducers.Pressure amplitudes at the blade passing frequency fBPF and root mean square(rms)values in 0 Hz-500 Hz frequency band are applied to evaluate the cutting effect.Results show that pressure spectrum is significantly affected by the volute tongue cut,especially for the component at fBPF.For different measuring points,influences of the volute tongue cut on three cases are not identical.From nns values,it is evident that cutting the volute tongue will lead to pressure energy increasing for most of the concerned measuring points,especially for the points at the far away region from the volute tongue.Finally,from comparison with the original shape case 1,the averaged increment of the twenty points is more than 20%.So it is concluded that for this type centrifugal pump,cutting the volute tongue is not reasonable considering low pressure pulsation requirement.

CFD Simulation of Pulsation Noise in a Small Centrifugal Compressor with Volute and Resonance Tube

The rotational frequency tone noise emitted from the automobile turbocharger is called the pulsation noise. The cause of the pulsation noise is not fully understood, but is considered to be due to some manufacturing errors, which is called the mistuning. The effects of the mistuning of the impeller blade on the noise field inside the flow passage of the compressor are numerically investigated. Here, the flow passage includes the volute and duct located downstream of the compressor impeller. Our numerical approach is found to successfully capture the wavelength of the pulsation noise at given rotational speeds by the comparison with the experiments. One of the significant findings is that the noise field of the pulsation noise in the duct is highly one-dimensional although the flow fields are highly three-dimensional.

Computational and Experimental Study of an Industrial Centrifugal Compressor Volute

A centrifugal compressor with a vaneless diffuser was studied experimentally and numerically. The main target of the study was to analyze the volute flow. Two different volute geometries was studied. The numerical solution was done by using a steady-state RANS code at both design and off-design conditions. Both calculated and measured pressure and velocity distributions are presented.

Flow of Viscous Oil in the Volute of a Centrifugal Pump

The flows of water as well as viscous oil in the three rectangular sections of the volute of a centrifugal pump are measured by using a two-dimensional laser Doppler velocimetry(LDV) in the best efficiency and part-loading points, respectively. The results show that the magnitude of tangential component of absolute velocity is one order larger than that of radial component. There are spiral motions in the sections of the volute. The angular momentum of liquid in the volute isn’t conservative and the viscosity of liquid is larger, this situation is more severe. The flow of water or viscous oil in the volute is diffused in both best efficiency point and part-loading points. The diffusion of the flow is weakened while pumping the viscous oil.

Bionic Volute Tongue Optimization Design of Multi-blade Centrifugal Fan Inspired by the Wave Leading-edge of Humpback Whale Flippers

The volute tongue can split the gas in the multi-blade centrifugal fan to make the gas flow to the volute outlet as much as possible.However,the unsteady axial deflection of the gas in the impeller results in different air flow angles at the outlet of the impeller at different blade heights.This seriously affects the flow near the volute tongue.The wave leading-edge structure of humpback whale flippers has a very high flow control effect under complex flow conditions.Therefore,the wave leading-edge structure is studied in this paper and applied to the optimization design of multi-blade centrifugal fan volute tongue.First,based on the wave leading-edge structure of humpback whale flippers,three-dimensional wave leading-edge airfoils with different wave direction angles are established to judge the adaptability of the new wave leading-edge structure under different attack angles.Then,aiming at the internal flow field and noise characteristics of multi-blade centrifugal fan,a bionic volute tongue optimization design method is proposed,and studied its influence on the internal flow field and noise characteristics of the fan.The results show that when the wave direction angle is 45°,the wave leading-edge structure can effectively suppress the generation of the leading-edge separation vortex and the shedding of the wake vortex,which is also helpful to reduce the noise.The bionic volute tongue with the wave leading-edge structure can adapt to the situation that the impeller outlet air flow angle is small.At the maximum volume flow rate operating point,the static pressure recovery coefficient of the bionic volute tongue fan is increased by about 5%compared to the original fan,the air volume is increased by 5.16%,and the noise is reduced by 0.6 dB.

Lotus root-like RuIr alloys with close-packed(0001)branches:Strain-driven performance for acidic water oxidation

Achieving composition tunability and structure editability of nanoalloys with high level strain may be an efficient strategy to remarkably boost catalytic performance toward oxygen evolution reaction(OER)in acidic water oxidation.Herein,lotus root-like RuIr alloys with native micro-strain were constructed by an epitaxial growth of Ru-richened hcp-(0001)branches on Ir-richened fcc-(111)seeds using a polyol thermal synthesis strategy.The resultant Ru_(60)Ir_(40) alloy shows an OER overpotential of 197 mV at 10 mA cm^(-2) and a Tafel slope of 46.59 mV dec^(-1),showing no obvious activity decay for 80 h continuous chronopotentiometry test in 0.5 M H_(2)SO_(4).The related characterizations including X-ray absorption fine structure(XAFS)spectroscopy and density functional theory(DFT)calculations show that that the remarkably improved activity of the lotus root-like alloy can be attributed to the(0001)facet-triggered strain,which can efficiently optimize the electronic band structure of the active metal and the weakening of the chemisorption of oxygen-containing substances to boost OER electrocatalysis.Therefore,this work provides a new strategy to designing a class of advanced electrocatalysts with high strain using diverse nanostructures as building materials for carbon-free clean energy conversion systems.