Investigation of an efficient shape optimization procedure for centrifugal pump impeller using eagle strategy algorithm and ANN (case study: slurry flow)

Abstract

Investigation an efficient shape optimization method for centrifugal pump and other turbo-machine is significant to reduce time consumption of process and increase accuracy and modification. For analysis an efficient shape optimization procedure, slurry flow in centrifugal pump is investigated. Since a centrifugal water pump has been not designed to carry out slurry flows, its performance decreases and energy consumption of this kind of pump increases. Therefore, improvement of performance and reduction of energy consumed for these pumps are the major issues. Since the performance of a centrifugal pump strictly depends on its impeller shape, in this study, the shape of impeller was optimized in order to achieve a higher efficiency for slurry flow. To optimize the impeller geometry and to improve the performance of Berkeh 32–160 pump as for the case study, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and Eagle Strategy (ES) algorithms have been coupled with a validated 3D Navier–Stokes equations for two phase flow based on Eulerian-Eulerian model. In the next step, the pump experimentally tested in an established slurry flow test rig in laboratory. Measured data were used to verify the numerical results of initial pump with slurry flow. Finally, the complete numerical characteristic curves of the pump with the optimized impeller were compared to the validated numerical characteristic curves of that with the initial impeller to verify optimization. An efficiency improvement of 3.33% at only 9.9% increasing of head has been obtained for optimized geometry. The results indicated a reasonable improvement in the optimal design of pump impeller and a higher performance using the ES algorithm. Furthermore the ES and PSO algorithm was compared and results shows that ES is efficient than PSO algorithm in this application and this methodology is more efficient than other surrogate methods.