Influence of the Spiral Angle of the Blade on the Material Loading Characteristics of the Slurry Pump

Abstract

To study the effect of rotational speed on the internal flow characteristics and operating performance of a deep-sea mining slurry pump, a new type of slurry pump delivery system with changing vane helix angle is adopted in this paper. Based on the coupled computational fluid dynamics-discrete element method (CFD-DEM), the realizable k-ɛturbulence model and SIMPLE algorithm are applied to numerically simulate the solid-liquid two-phase flow field in the slurry pump to study the effect of rotational speed on the flow characteristics and distribution of particles in the slurry pump. The results show that with the increase in rotational speed, the separation of the boundary layer at the impeller runner is promoted, which weakens the particle overflow capacity and increases the hydraulic loss. The impact at the inlet of the guide vane runner is more violent. The fluid flow separation at the inlet is suppressed. The overflow capacity is increased and the hydraulic loss is weakened. With the increase in rotational speed, the more the average number of collisions between particles and vanes in each time period, the more the particles collide with the impeller and space. The collision probability and collision speed of the guide vane overflow parts become larger, thus laterally reflecting that the larger the rotational speed, the greater the wear rate of particles on the blade is.