Abstract
Regenerative pump is a low specific speed and rotor-dynamic turbomachine capable of developing high heads at low flow rates. In this paper, a numerical study has been carried out in order to investigate the effect of blade angle on the performance of a regenerative pump. Two groups of impellers were employed. The first type has symmetric angle blades with identical inlet/outlet angles of ±10°, ±30°, and ±50° and the second group has nonsymmetric angle blades in which the inlet angle was set to 0° and six different angles of ±10°, ±30°, and ±50° were designed for the outlet of the blades. A total of 12 impellers, as well as primary radial blades impeller, were investigated in this study. The results showed that all forward blades have higher head coefficients than radial blades impeller at design flow coefficient. It was found that regenerative pumps with symmetric angle forward blades have better performance than other types. Also, it is worth mentioning that the highest head coefficient and efficiency occur at angle+10<β<+30of symmetric angle blades. It was found that the maximum efficiency occurs at angle of +15.5° by curve fitting to the data obtained from numerical simulations for symmetric angle forward blades.
Highlights
Regenerative flow pumps are placed in the category of dynamic pumps
Since the nature of the flow in regenerative pump is unsteady, a transient simulation was accomplished just for main geometry of the pump to evaluate the results of quasi-steady simulations
A numerical investigation has been carried out in order to study the effect of blade angle on the performance of a regenerative pump
Summary
Regenerative flow pumps are placed in the category of dynamic pumps. The ability to produce high heads at low flow rates is the main characteristic of these pumps. The specific speed of regenerative pumps is very low and they share some of the characteristics of positive displacement pumps without any wear and lubrication problems. The fluid in regenerative pump moves spirally in flow channel and reenters the blades of impeller several times in its peripheral path from inlet to outlet. Because of this repetitive treatment of impeller blading on fluid, regenerative pumps have the ability to generate a head equivalent to that of several centrifugal stages with comparable tip speeds. Regenerative pumps, typically, require lower net positive suction head than centrifugal pumps [1]. Regenerative pumps have a disadvantage of having a low hydraulic efficiency (between 30 and 50%)
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