Abstract
Due to their outstanding anti-clogging ability, vortex pumps have been gradually promoted and applied in recent years. However, when transporting sewage containing solids, they will still encounter problems such as partial clogging, overwork wear, etc., therefore, it is particularly important to master the flow characteristics of solid particles in the vortex pump. In this paper, the Discrete Element Model-Computational Fluid Dynamics (DEM-CFD) coupled calculation method is introduced into the numerical simulation of vortex pumps and particles with diameters of 1, 2 and 3 mm and concentrations of 1% and 5%, were subjected to numerical simulation and study of the flow characteristics of the particles, then rapeseed was used to represent solid particles in tests. It was obvious that the CFD results were in good agreement with the experimental results, whereby the high speed photography experimental results of the pump inlet section show that the experimental results are consistent with the numerical simulation results. The results show that there are three typical movement tracks of solid particles in the vortex pump: in Track A particles flow through the impeller and enter the volute by the through flow, in Track B particles go directly into the volute through the lateral cavity under the influence of circulation flow and in Track C the particles enter the impeller from the front cover end area of the impeller blade inlet and then into the volute through the back half area of blade. It can be found that the particles are mainly distributed at the back of the volute.
Highlights
Because the impeller of a vortex pump is arranged on one side of the pump cavity, its working principle is different from that of general centrifugal pumps and it mainly relies on the interaction of the tinternal circulation flow and through flow to achieve the purpose of conveying media
This is because the current state research on the movement of solid particles in pumps is still immature, especially for two-phase flow pumps such as vortex pumps which still use the hydraulic design method based on the clean water pump
The results show that the Discrete Element Model-Computational Fluid Dynamics (DEM-CFD) coupling method can be used to simulate the solid-liquid two-phase flow in the vortex pump
Summary
Because the impeller of a vortex pump is arranged on one side of the pump cavity, its working principle is different from that of general centrifugal pumps and it mainly relies on the interaction of the tinternal circulation flow and through flow to achieve the purpose of conveying media. The efficiency of vortex pumps is usually less than 50%, which is lower than that of traditional centrifugal pumps [1,2,3] This is because the current state research on the movement of solid particles in pumps is still immature, especially for two-phase flow pumps such as vortex pumps which still use the hydraulic design method based on the clean water pump. The characteristics of the two-phase flow in the pump under different working conditions are not clear, which leads to a slightly lower efficiency when conveying complex media, and the overflow components are not optimized for particle movement, resulting in typical wear and blockage problems [4,5].
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