Flow measurements in a model centrifugal pump by 3-D PIV

Abstract

PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry), as an non-intrusive flow measurements technology, is widely used to investigate the flow fields in many areas. 3-D (three Dimensional) PIV has seldom been used to measure flow field in rotational impeller of centrifugal pump due to the difficulty of calibration in samll space. In this article, a specially manufactured water tank was used to perform the calibration for 3-D PIV measurement. The instantaneous absolute velocity in one impeller passage was obtained by merging of three sub zones and the relative velocity was acquired by velocity decomposition. The result shows that, when the pump runs at the condition of design flow rate, the radial component velocity Wr appears a concave distribution except the condition of R=45 mm. With the increase of radius, the circumference location of the minimum radial component velocity Wr moves from the pressure side to the suction side. At the same time, the tangential component velocity Wθ on the suction side decreases gradually with the increase of radius, while the component on the pressure side increases gradually. The secondary flow in different radius section has also been shown. At last, the error of PIV measurements was analyzed, which shows that the test results are accurate and the measured data is reliable.