THREE-DIMENSIONAL COUPLED IMPELLER-VOLUTE SIMULATION OF FLOW IN CENTRIFUGAL PUMP AND PERFORMANCE PREDICTION

A three-dimensional turbulent flow through an entire centrifugal pump is simulated using k-ε turbulence model modified by rotation and curvature, SIMPLEC method and body-fitted coordinate. The velocity and pressure fields are obtained for the pump under various working conditions, which is used to predict the head and hydraulic efficiency of the pump, and the results correspond well with the measured values. The calculation results indicate that the pressure is higher on the pressure side than that on the suction side of the blade; The relative velocity on the suction side gradually decreases from the impeller inlet to the outlet, while increases on the pressure side, it finally results in the lower relative velocity on the suction side and the higher one on the pressure side at the impeller outlet; The impeller flow field is asymmetric, i.e. the velocity and pressure fields arc totally different among all channels in the impeller; In the volute, the static pressure gradually increases with the flow route, and a large pressure gratitude occurs in the tongue; Secondary flow exists in the rear part of the spiral.

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT OF CENTRIFUGAL FAN BY MEANS OF NUMERICAL SIMULATION

Numerical simulation is used to investigate the flow field in a model centrifugal fan for steam power stations in order to improve the performance. During testing the model fan, it is found that the efficiency is only 62.5% with inlet box, without it the efficiency is 83%. In addition, the strong vibration of test rig is observed with inlet box. It would be highly desirable if the aerodynamics of the fan could be studied. Therefore, numerical simulation is carried out to investigate the internal flow characteristics of a model fan with inlet box. The results from CFD analysis show that the whole region of the inlet box is occupied by a spiral vortex rotating inversely as the rotor＇s direction, which significantly affect the most flow＇region inside the fan. For this reason, a dummy plate is arranged in the inlet box to impede the generation of the spiral vortex, the results from CFD after the reform demonstrate that the modification is quiet effective, the former large spiral vertex has been destroyed effectively, the large one is superseded in favor of two small vortexes. However, two small vortexes have little effect on the inner flow of the rotor and the following parts. Finally, the efficiency of the model fan is improved by the test and the strong vibration of the test rig disappears. This type of modification has been used in steam power stations, the fan efficiency raises to 84% successfully.

Effects of mesh style and grid convergence on numerical simulation accuracy of centrifugal pump

In order to evaluate the effects of mesh generation techniques and grid convergence on pump performance in centrifugal pump model, three widely used mesh styles including structured hexahedral, unstructured tetrahedral and hybrid prismatic/tetrahedral meshes were generated for a centrifugal pump model. And quantitative grid convergence was assessed based on a grid convergence index(GCI), which accounts for the degree of grid refinement. The structured, unstructured or hybrid meshes are found to have certain difference for velocity distributions in impeller with the change of grid cell number. And the simulation results have errors to different degrees compared with experimental data. The GCI-value for structured meshes calculated is lower than that for the unstructured and hybrid meshes. Meanwhile, the structured meshes are observed to get more vortexes in impeller passage.Nevertheless, the hybrid meshes are found to have larger low-velocity area at outlet and more secondary vortexes at a specified location than structured meshes and unstructured meshes.

NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF FLOW OF PULP FIBER SUSPENSIONS IN STOCK PUMP WITH SEMI-OPEN IMPELLER

The flow of pulp fiber suspensions with a consistency below 5% through a pump falls into the turbulent region. The 2-phase 3D turbulent flow of the mixture is simulated in the hydraulic components composed by suction chamber, front board, semi-impeller and volute casing for the first time. The pseudo-fluid model and the k-ε turbulent model are modified. Phase coupled SIMPLE algorithm is applied to make pressure-velocity correction equation. Based on the results of the numerical simulation, the distribution of velocity, pressure and density of liquid and particle phase are compared and analyzed. The flow analysis in the tip between front board and impeller is emphasized, which reflects the advantage of semi-open impeller when it transports 2-phase medium. This calculation result will be helpful for the design of pump impeller and the establishment of design method of centrifugal stock pump.

Steady air injection flow control for increasing the surge margin of radial flow compressor

Steady air injection upstream of the leading edge was used to increase the surge margin of a centrifugal compressor.To reveal the mechanism,steady numerical simulations were performed on a high pressure ratio centrifugal compressor rotor operated with a rotor tip speed of 586 m/s.Eight different injection yaw angle with four different injection mass flow was performed to determine the configuration that provide the best results for the compression system studied in this work.The injection angle,α,was fifteen degree and the injectors were placed at short distance（ten percent of the inlet tip radius upstream of the compressor face） to achieve maximum control over the leading edge flow by varying individual injection parameters.The results show that at design speed（n=50 000 r/min） with injection flow rate more than 2% of the main flow rate and yaw angle between 20° and 30°,the mass flow rate at stall decreases for approximately 8%.But with higher injection rate,other compressor parameters were affected such as compressor efficiency and compressor total pressure ratio.

Numerical and experimental studies of hydraulic noise induced by surface dipole sources in a centrifugal pump

The influences of the four different surface dipole sources in a centrifugal pump on the acoustic calculating accuracy are studied in this paper, by using the CFD combined with the Lighthill acoustic analogy methods. Firstly, the unsteady flow in the pump is solved based on the large eddy simulation method and the pressure pulsations on the four different surfaces are obtained. The four surfaces include the volute surface, the discharge pipe surface, the inner surface of the pump cavity, and the interfaces between the impeller and the stationary parts as well as the outer surface of the impeller. Then, the software Sysnoise is employed to interpolate the pressure fluctuations onto the corresponding surfaces of the acoustic model. The Fast Fourier Transform with a Hanning window is used to analyze the pressure fluctuations and transform them into the surface dipole sources. The direct boundary element method is applied to calculate the noise radiated from the dipole sources. And the predicted sound pressure level is compared with the experimental data. The results show that the pressure fluctuations on the discharge pipe surface and the outer surface of the impeller have little effect on the acoustic simulation results. The pressure pulsations on the inner surface of the pump cavity play an important role in the internal flow and the acoustic simulation. The acoustic calculating error can be reduced by about 7% through considering the effect of the pump cavity. The sound pressure distributions show that the sound pressure level increases with the growing flow rate, with the largest magnitude at the tongue zone.