Performance Test and Flow Measurement of Contra-Rotating Axial Flow Pump

An application of contra-rotating rotors has been proposed against a demand for developing higher specific speed axial flow pump. In the present paper, the advantage and disadvantage of using contra-rotating rotors are described in comparison with conventional type of rotor-stator, based on theoretical and experimental investigations. The advantages are as follows： （1） The pump is inherently designed as smaller sized and at lower rotational speed. （2） A stable head-characteristic curve for flow rate with negative slope appears. （3） As the rear rotor rotational speed is varied as independent control of front rotor, the wider range of high performance operation is obtained by rear rotor speed control in addition to front rotor speed control. The disadvantages are as follows： （1） The structure of double shaft system becomes complex. （2） The pump performance is inferior at over flow rate as the rear rotor loading is weakened. （3） The blade rows interaction from rear rotor to front rotor more strongly appears. Then the rear rotor design is a key to achieve higher pump performance. Some methods to overcome these disadvantages will be discussed in more details toward wider usage of contra-rotating axial flow pump in various industrial fields.

Experimental study on performance of contra-rotating axial flow fan

Contra-rotating axial flow fan is a kind of the vital equipment in coal mines. Their work conditions directly affect the safety of staff and production. In the paper, the performance of the contra-rotating axial flow fan is experi- mentally investigated. The study is focused on the fan performance, the shaft power and the match between the motor and fan efficiency at different blade angles. The results show that the blade angle 43°/26° has the best aerodynamic perfor- mance. The first engine has a greater impact on the fan than the second one. The blade angle with the best aerodynamic performance does not necessarily correspond to the one with the best match between the motor and fan efficiency. The blade angle 43°/24° is the best choice for the operation of the fan in the present study.

Unsteady Flow Condition between Front and Rear Rotor of Contra-Rotating Small Sized Axial Fan

Contra-rotating small-sized axial fans are used as cooling fans for electric equipment. In the case of the contra-rotating rotors, the blade row distance between front and rear rotors is a key parameter for the performance and stable operation. The wake and potential interference occur between the front and rear rotors and leakage flow from the front rotor tip influences on the flow condition of the rear rotor near the shroud when the blade row distance is small. Therefore, it is important to clarify the flow condition between front and rear rotors. The fan static pressure curves were obtained by the experimental apparatus and the numerical analysis was also conducted to investigate the internal flow between front and rear rotors. The leakage flow from the front rotor tip reaches the leading edge of the rear rotor when the blade row distance is small as L = 10 mm and the pressure fluctuations at the leading edge of the rear rotor tip becomes larger than those at other radial positions. In the present paper, the vorticity contour between front and rear rotors is shown and pressure fluctuations related to the leakage flow from the front rotor is investigated using the numerical analysis result. Then, suitable blade row distance for the contra-rotating small sized axial fan is discussed based on the internal flow condition.

Study on Contra-Rotating Small-Sized Axial Flow Hydro Turbine

It is thought that small hydropower generation is alternative energy, and the energy potential of small hydropower is large. The efficiency of small hydro turbines is lower than that of large one, and these small hydro turbine’s common problems are out of operation by foreign materials. Then, there are demands for small hydro turbines to keep high per- formance and wide flow passage. Therefore, we adopted contra-rotating rotors which can be expected to achieve high performance and low-solidity rotors with wide flow passage in order to accomplish high performance and stable opera- tion. Final goal on this study is development of an electric appliance type small hydro turbine which has high portability and makes an effective use of the unused small hydro power energy source. In the present paper, the performance and the internal flow conditions in detail of contra-rotating small-sized axial flow hydro turbine are shown as a first step of the research with the numerical flow analysis. Then, a capability adopting contra-rotating rotors to an electric appliance type small hydro turbine was discussed. Furthermore, the high performance design for it was considered by the numeri- cal analysis results.

Flow Ripple of Axial Piston Pump with Computational Fluid Dynamic Simulation Using Compressible Hydraulic Oil

The flow ripple, which is the source of noise in an axial piston pump, is widely studied today with the computational fluid dynamic（CFD） technology development. In the traditional CFD modeling, the fluid compressibility, which strongly influences the accuracy of the flow ripple simulation results, is often neglected. So a compressible sub-model was added with user defined function（UDF） in the CFD model to predict the flow ripple. At the same time, a test rig of flow ripple was built to study the validity of simulation. The flow ripple of pump was tested with different working parameters, including the rotation speed and the working pressure. The comparisons with experimental results show that the validity of the CFD model with compressible hydraulic oil is acceptable in analyzing the flow tipple characteristics. In this paper, the improved CFD model increases the accuracy of flow ripple rate to about one-magnitude order. Therefore, the compressible model of hydraulic oil is necessary in the flow ripple investigation of CFD simulation. The compressibility of hydraulic oil has significant effect on flow ripple, and the compression ripple takes about 88% of the total flow ripple of pump. Leakage ripple has the lowest proportion of about 4%, and geometrical ripple leakage ripple takes the remnant 8%. Besides, the influence of working parameters was investigated through the CFD simulations and experimental measurements. Comparison results show that the amplitude of flow ripple grows with the increasing of rotation speed and working pressure, and the flow ripple rate is independent of the rotation speed. However, flow ripple rate of piston pump grows with the increasing of working pressure, because the leakage ripple will increase with the pressure growing. The investigation on flow ripple of an axial piston pump using compressible hydraulic oil provides a more validity simulation model for the CFD analyzing and is beneficial to further understanding of the flow ripple characteristics in an axial piston pump.

Impact of Typical Steady-state Conditions and Transient Conditions on Flow Ripple and Its Test Accuracy for Axial Piston Pump

The current research about the flow ripple of axial piston pump mainly focuses on the effect of the structure of parts on the flow ripple. Therein, the structure of parts are usually designed and optimized at rated working conditions. However, the pump usually has to work in large-scale and time-variant working conditions. Therefore, the flow ripple characteristics of pump and analysis for its test accuracy with respect to variant steady-state conditions and transient conditions in a wide range of operating parameters are focused in this paper. First, a simulation model has been constructed, which takes the kinematics of oil film within friction pairs into account for higher accuracy. Afterwards, a test bed which adopts Secondary Source Method is built to verify the model. The simulation and tests results show that the angular position of the piston, corresponding to the position where the peak flow ripple is produced, varies with the different pressure. The pulsating amplitude and pulsation rate of flow ripple increase with the rise of pressure and the variation rate of pressure. For the pump working at a constant speed, the flow pulsation rate decreases dramatically with the increasing speed when the speed is less than 27.78% of the maximum speed, subsequently presents a small decrease tendency with the speed further increasing. With the rise of the variation rate of speed, the pulsating amplitude and pulsation rate of flow ripple increase. As the swash plate angle augments, the pulsating amplitude of flow ripple increases, nevertheless the flow pulsation rate decreases. In contrast with the effect of the variation of pressure, the test accuracy of flow ripple is more sensitive to the variation of speed. It makes the test accuracy above 96.20% available for the pulsating amplitude of pressure deviating within a range of ~6% from the mean pressure. However, with a variation of speed deviating within a range of ±2% from the mean speed, the attainable test accuracy of flow ripple is above 93.07%. The model constructed in this research proposes a method to determine the flow ripple characteristics of pump and its attainable test accuracy under the large-scale and time-variant working conditions. Meanwhile, a discussion about the variation of flow ripple and its obtainable test accuracy with the conditions of the pump working in wide operating ranges is given as well.

Numerical and Experimental Investigation of High-efficiency Axial-flow Pump

The experimental investigation of axial-flow pump has been rapidly developed to meet the needs of South-to-North Water Diversion Project of China. Owing to the boundary conditions of hub, blade tip clearance, much of the physical phenomena and laws involved in this complex flow field can＇t be fully determined. The flow characteristics of the high efficiency axial-flow pump have been simulated by RNG k-e turbulence model and SIMPLEC arithmetic based on FLUENT software. Numerical results indicate that the data from the prediction show agreement with the experimental results, static pressure on pressure side of blades increases slightly at circumferential direction with radius increasing, and keep almost constant at the same radial while increasing gradually from inlet to exit on the suction side along flow direction at design conditions. The static pressure, total pressure and velocity at inlet, impeller outlet and vane outlet were measured by a five-hole probe, and a contrastive experiment was done to investigate the influence of hub leakage. The experimental results show that inlet flow is almost axial and the prerotation is very small at various conditions. The meridional velocity and circulation distribution are almost identical at impeller outlet at design conditions due to steady flow and high efficiency. The residual circulation exits at downstream of the guide vane, and the circumferential velocity component increases linearly from hub to tip at small flow rate conditions. Hub leakage in adjustable blades results in the decrease of the meridional velocity and circulation at blade exit near hub. The results of numerical simulation and experiments supply important flow structure information for the high-efficiency axial-flow pump.

The 3D Modeling of Blades of Multiphase Flow Helico-Axial Pump's Rotor Based on Solidworks

The structure of multiphase flow helico-axial pump＇s rotor and how to model the rotor, especially the blades of the rotor, based on the Solidworks software. More important, the principle of the blade design is mainly introduced. Under the guide of the principle, the 3D coordinates of the blade data points can be got by matlab programming. In the paper, the design step and the modeling step are particularly described through a concrete example.

Hydrodynamic Instability Analysis of the Axial Flow Pump in an Ethylene Polymerization Loop Reactor

The hydrodynamic instability of the axial flow pump in a loop reactor has long been a troubling issue to be solved in the polyethylene industry due to the lack of a better mechanismic understanding.Generally,the instability of an axial flow pump can be reflected by the fluctuation of the pump head.In this study,the transient computational fluid dynamics(CFD)simulation is adopted to study the hydrodynamic instability of the axial flow pump used in an ethylene polymerization loop reactor.The results show that the pump head under single liquid phase nearly remains constant while the pump head under slurry phase fluctuates due to the variation of solid volume fraction distribution in the pump.Besides,under the combined effect of the maximum solid volume fraction difference in the pump and the turbulence intensity of the liquid phase,the fluctuation of the pump head under slurry phase increases when the solid volume fraction in the loop reactor increases from 0.10 to 0.29,and the fluctuation decreases,when the solid volume fraction increases from 0.29 to 0.35.Furthermore,there is a negative correlation between the pump head and the solid volume fraction in the pump;with the increase of solid volume fraction in the loop reactor,and the correlation coefficient increases as well.Moreover,a‘spiral particulate band’phenomenon is formed in the ascending leg caused by three mechanisms,viz.:the segregation of particles in all bends,the dispersion of particles by the secondary flow in the ascending leg,and the rotational movement of particles in the pump.

Performance and Internal Flow of Contra-Rotating Small-Sized Cooling Fan

High pressure and large flow rate small-sized cooling fans are used for servers in data centers and there is a strong demand to increase its performance because of increase of quantity of heat from servers. Contra-rotating rotors have been adopted for some of high pressure and large flow rate cooling fans to meet the demand. The performance curve of the contra-rotating small-sized cooling fan with 40 mm square casing was investigated by an experimental apparatus and its internal flow condition was clarified by the numerical analysis. The fan static pressure of the front rotor was extremely low and it increased significantly at the rear rotor. The uniform flow was achieved at the inlet of the rear rotor because of the special shape of the casing between the front and rear rotors. On the other hand, the tip leakage flow was large enough to influence on the main flow of the test cooling fan by the design specification of high pressure with compact rotor diameter.

A New Magnetic Sealless Coupling Axial Flow Blood Pump

For rotating blood pump, the sealing problem is a very important one to solve. In this paper, it was introduced that we designed and made a small axial flow pump, applying the magnetic coupling method. The pump consisted of two pump housings, a brushless DC motor, an impeller with five wanes, a pair of magnetic discs, a spacer, an inlet and an outlet areas , bearings, a support frame, and etc. The pump is made of titanium and is 125 mm length, 147 ml volume, total 380g of weight. Performances of outputting, sealing, heat creating and damage to blood by the pump were investigated in vitro experiment. Results showed for external experiment that: (1)The pressure created by the pump was 90 mmHg, the flow rates were 1.2 L/min, 4 L/min, 5.9 L/min and 7.8 L/min correspondingly to 5000 rpm, 6000 rpm, 7000 rpm and 8000rpm rotation speeds. The hydrodynamic performance of the axial flow blood pump was enough to meet a patient need when the blood pump was used as a left ventricular assistant device. (2)The hemolysis test was studied by the normalized index of hemolysis(NIH). The NIH result of the axial flow pump was 0.08 g/100 L. (3)The outside temperature of the pump didnt change obviously in 120 hours of rotation, and the sealing function was very well.

Pre-Compression Volume on Flow Ripple Reduction of a Piston Pump

Axial piston pump with pre-compression volume（PCV） has lower flow ripple in large scale of operating condition than the traditional one. However, there is lack of precise simulation model of the axial piston pump with PCV, so the parameters of PCV are difticult to be determined. A finite element simulation model for piston pump with PCV is built by considering the piston movement, the fluid characteristic（including fluid compressibility and viscosity） and the leakage flow rate. Then a test of the pump flow ripple called the secondary source method is implemented to validate the simulation model. Thirdly, by comparing results among the simulation results, test results and results from other publications at the same operating condition, the simulation model is validated and used in optimizing the axial piston pump with PCV. According to the pump flow ripples obtained by the simulation model with different PCV parameters, the flow ripple is the smallest when the PCV angle is 13~, the PCV volume is 1.3 ~ I0-4 m3 at such operating condition that the pump suction pressure is 2 MPa, the pump delivery pressure 15 MPa, the pump speed 1 000 r/min, the swash plate angle 13~. At the same time, the flow ripple can be reduced when the pump suction pressure is 2 MPa, the pump delivery pressure is 5 MPa,15 MPa, 22 MPa, pump speed is 400 r/min, 1 000 r/rain, 1 500 r/rain, the swash plate angle is ll~, 13~, 15~ and 17~, respectively. The finite element simulation model proposed provides a method for optimizing the PCV structure and guiding for designing a quieter axial piston pump.

Numerical Analyses of Idealized Total Cavopulmonary Connection Physiologies with Single and Bilateral Superior Vena Cava Assisted by an Axial Blood Pump

Our study evaluated the hemodynamic performance of an axial flow blood pump surgically implanted in idealized total cavopulmonary connection(TCPC)models.This blood pump was designed to augment pressure from the inferior vena cava(IVC)to the pulmonary circulation.Two Fontan procedures with single and bilateral superior vena cava(SVC)were compared to fit the mechanical supported TCPC physiologies.Computational fluid dynamics(CFD)analyses of two Pump-TCPC models were performed in the analyses.Pressure-flow characteristics,energy efficiency,fluid streamlines,hemolysis and thrombosis analyses were implemented.Numerical simulations indicate that the pump produces pressure generations of 1 mm to 24 mm Hg for rotational speeds ranging from 2000 RPM to 5000 RPM and flow rates of 2 LPM to 4 LPM.Two surgical models incorporated with the pump were found to be insignificant in pressure augmentation and energy boost.The risk assessment of blood trauma and thrombosis generation was evaluated representatively through blood damage index(BDI),particle resident time(PRT)and relative resistant time(RRT).The hemolysis and thrombosis analyses declare the advantage of the pump supported bilateral SVC surgical scheme in balancing flow distribution and reducing the risk of endothelial cell destruction and trauma generation.

Numerical Investigation of an Idealized Total Cavopulmonary Connection Physiology Assisted by the Axial Blood Pump With and Without Diffuser

In order to improve the surgical treatment of the congenital heart disease patient with single ventricle defect,two axial flow blood pumps,one with diffuser and the other without diffuser,were designed and virtually implanted into an idealized total cavopulmonary connection(TCPC)model to form two types of Pump-TCPC physiological structure.Computational fluid dynamics(CFD)simulationswere performed to analyze the variations of the hemodynamic characteristics,such as flow field,wall shear stress(WSS),oscillatory shear index(OSI),relative residence time(RRT),between the two Pump-TCPC models.Numerical results indicate that the Pump-TCPC with diffuser has better flow field stability,less damage on endothelial cell of vessel wall,and lower risk of vascular injury and thrombosis formation than that without diffuser.

基于Pumplinx的斜盘式轴向柱塞泵缸体优化分析

柱塞泵是工程机械液压系统中十分重要的动力元件,依靠柱塞在缸体孔内做往复运动时产生的容积变化进行吸油和压油。斜盘式轴向柱塞泵的缸体一般呈柱形,其柱塞中心线平行于缸体的轴线。这种结构在同等流量输出下,缸体的体积会较大。该文以斜盘式轴向柱塞泵为例,对泵的局部结构进行改进。主要是对缸体进行了优化设计,从原先的直缸直腰式柱形缸变为斜缸斜腰式锥形缸体,以及将常用的滑靴包覆柱塞的结构形式改为柱塞包覆滑靴的结构形式等.在泵体相同体积大小的情况下,轴向柱塞泵的流量特性和自吸性能得到提高。运用泵专用软件pumplinx进行仿真对比缸体结构中斜缸斜腰角度,得出使柱塞泵整体性能最佳的组合。并通过建立斜盘式轴向柱塞泵的锥形缸体结构数学模型,根据缸体结构参数的调整与组合,得出满足工况使用要求,并达到缸体刚度与强度等条件的锥形缸体泵模型。研究结果对柱塞泵的结构设计有一定的参考价值。

Research on blade tip clearance cavitation and turbulent kinetic energy characteristics of axial flow pump based on the partially-averaged Navier-Stokes model

To reveal the cavitation forms of tip leakage vortex(TLV)of the axial flow pump and the flow mechanism of the flow field,this research adopts the partially-averaged Navier-Stokes(PANS)model to simulate the cavitation values of an axial flow pump,followed by experimental validation.The experimental result shows that compared with the shear stress transport(SST)k-ωmodel,the PANS model significantly reduces the eddy viscosity of the flow field to make the vortex structure clearer and allow the turbulence scale to be more robustly analyzed.The cavitation area within the axial flow pump mainly comprises of TLV cavitation,clearance cavitation and tip leakage flows combined effect of triangular cloud cavitation formed.The formation and development of cavitation are accompanied by the formation and evolution of vortex,and variations in vortex structure also generate and promote the development of cavitation.In addition,an in-depth analysis of the relationship between the turbulent kinetic energy(TKE)transport equation and cavitation patterns was also conducted,finding that the regions with relatively high TKE are mainly distributed around gas/liquid boundaries with serious cavitation and evident gas-liquid change.This phenomenon is mainly attributed to the combined effect of the pressure action term,stress diffusion term and TKE production term.

Performance and Flow Condition of Small-Sized Axial Fan and Adoption of Contra-Rotating Rotors

Small-sized axial fans are used as air coolers for electric equipments.But there is a strong demand for higher power of fans according to the increase of quantity of heat from electric devices.Therefore,higher rotational speed design is conducted,although it causes the deterioration of the efficiency and the increase of noise.Then the adoption of contra-rotating rotors for the small-sized axial fan is proposed for the improvement of the performance.In the present paper,the performance and the internal flow condition of the small-sized axial fan are shown as a first step of the research for the contra-rotating small-sized axial fan and the important points to apply contra-rotating rotors to the small-sized axial fan are discussed.Furthermore,the numerical flow analysis is conducted to investigate the performance of the contra-rotating small-sized axial fan and internal flow conditions and pressure distributions are clarified and the effect of contra-rotating rotors is considered.

Unsteady Flow Condition of Contra-Rotating Small-Sized Axial Fan

Small-sized axial fans are used as air cooler for electric equipments.But there is a strong demand for higher power of fans according to the increase of quantity of heat from electric devices.Therefore,higher rotational speed design is conducted,although,it causes the deterioration of efficiency and the increase of noise.Then,the adoption of contra-rotating rotors for the small-sized axial fan is proposed for the improvement of performance.In the case of contra-rotating rotors,it is necessary to design the rotor considering the unsteady flow condition of each front and rear rotor.In the present paper,the fan performance of the contra-rotating small-sized axial fan with 100mm diameter at a designed and a partial flow rates is shown,and the unsteady flow conditions at the inlet and the outlet of each front and rear rotor are clarified with unsteady numerical results.Furthermore,the relation between the performance and the unsteady flow condition of the contra-rotating small-sized axial fan is discussed and the methods to improve the performance are considered.

Experimental study on inlet vortex in pump sump

In order to study the mechanism of the vortex generation at the bottom of the pump sump below the flare tube,twenty pressure pulsation monitoring points were arranged at the bottom of the pump sump below the flare tube,and the pressure fluctuation experiments were carried out under different flow conditions.The experimental results show that the frequency of pressure fluctuation at the bottom of the pump sump is twice of the rotational frequency of the impeller blade.The vortex below the flare tube is easy to generate under the large flow conditions and mainly concentrates at the right front position below the flare tube.The position of the vortex occurring is corresponding to the position of the low-pressure region below flare tube.

主动脉穿刺型轴流血泵折边结构叶轮的数值模拟及溶血分析

为解决血泵因叶顶间隙泄漏而造成溶血和血栓等问题,引入了一种折边不等间距叶轮,采用计算流体力学(computational fluid dynamics, CFD)进行内部流场的数值模拟,并与非折边不等间距叶轮及折边等间距叶轮进行对比分析,研究了它们的内流场动力学特性和血液相容性.结果表明:折边叶片结构血泵避免了叶顶间隙泄漏流的产生,同时折边不等间距叶轮减少了叶轮入口和出口处的回流和涡流,流道内整体切应力低于其他2种叶轮;3种叶轮的溶血指数HI均满足血泵的溶血设计指标,其中,折边不等间距叶轮血泵壁面切应力在0~150 Pa的占比达96.84%,曝光时间相对集中且满足人工血泵设计要求,溶血指数较非折边不等间距叶轮血泵下降了3.50%,较折边等间距叶轮血泵下降了12.50%,溶血性能最优.提出的折边不等间距叶轮血泵可有效降低红细胞破损概率,减少溶血和血栓的发生,可为轴流血泵的结构设计和优化提供一定参考.