Impeller and volute design and optimization of the centrifugal pump with low specific speed in order to extract performance curves

Abstract

Now a day centrifugal pumps are vital components of industries. Certainly, one of the most important specifications of centrifugal pumps are the performance curves. In the present work, performance curves of a centrifugal pumps are obtained by Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and as an outcome, CFD results compare by practical curves. At the first step impeller and volute are designed with two standards and at the end former design completed by automatic design process using CFturbo software. For this purpose, full 3D-RANS equations in coupled with SST turbulence model are solved for several flow rate between 20% and 140% of the operation condition by means of a commercial code, CFX. This simulation is defined by means of the multi-reference frame technique in which the impeller is situated in the rotating reference frame, and the volute is in the fixed reference frame. Proposed simulation is based on a steady state flow, non-Newtonian, incompressible and constant property condition. Operation point is simulated to get the total head and then non-operation points are simulated to obtain performance curves. Practical curves and numerical ones are in good agreement, so numerical approach could be a perfect way to make centrifugal pump design better and easier. Indeed pump simulation with CFD approach can increase our knowledge about pump behavior such as consumption energy, trimming process and saving energy before we have any activities on the pump so the predictions have bettering and excise about any process on the pump.