Abstract
Transportation efficiency is a problem of particular interest in multi-channel confluent water supply engineering. Transportation efficiency depends not only on the system control strategy but also on the pressure loss (pressure difference between the inlet and outlet) and pressure drop (amplitude of outlet pressure fluctuations) of its structure. In this article, sensitivity analyses of the pressure loss and pressure drop to changes in multi-channel confluent water supply geometry are presented. An experimental set-up was established to validate computational fluid dynamic (CFD) predictions and obtain the boundary conditions for two-channel synchronous switching. The influences of the geometric structure varies by the clustered pipe diameter (40 mm < Dc < 80 mm), main pipe diameter (30 mm < Do < 80 mm), channel pitch (60 mm < L < 400 mm) and number of channels (2 ≤ n ≤ 4); those variables were investigated with the help of CFD simulations. The results showed that configuration “C” can be considered a costless method of decreasing pressure loss (βC(2.05) < βA(2.42) < βB(2.64)) and that the different configurations are insensitive to pressure drop. The variations of the influence of channel pitch and clustered pipe diameter on pressure loss have extremes at L/d = 5 and Dc/d = 2.5, respectively, but the effect on pressure drop is not obvious. The main pipe diameter and the inlet velocity have more significant influences on efficiency. The results can be used to choose the proper geometry of multi-channel confluent water supply to enable energy savings.
Highlights
The multi-channel confluent supply (MCCS) structure has been widely used in a variety of devices, such as fixed fire facilities, urban domestic water, nuclear power plants and pumping stations
The energy loss mainly depends on the pressure loss of the structure itself and the pressure two-channel synchronous switching process in a three-channel parallel operation
The reason for the pressure drop is a influence of certain structure and other that loss affect the investigated energy loss certain structure parameters andparameters other parameters that parameters affect the energy were two-channel synchronous switching process in a three-channel parallel operation
Summary
The multi-channel confluent supply (MCCS) structure has been widely used in a variety of devices, such as fixed fire facilities, urban domestic water, nuclear power plants and pumping stations. The. MCCS structures may cause additional pressure loss and pressure drop (see Section 2.2) in the system due to their structural designs and operating conditions, respectively. Many investigations have been performed for improving efficiency in multi-channel confluent water supply systems. The authors in [1], for example, describe a new control strategy for variable-speed controlled parallel pumps (“pump-controlled” systems), which significantly improves energy efficiency compared with traditional control. In [2], a new kind of “pump-valve-controlled” strategy for a parallel-pumps water supply system was developed, and the model was optimized using a genetic algorithm. Other authors have focused on the hydraulic transient of the parallel pumps system; for example, the sensitivity of the transient conditions during runaway
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