Abstract
Centrifugal pumps can be operated in reverse as small hydropower recovery turbines and are cheaper than bespoke turbines due to their ease of manufacture. Splitter blades technique is one of the techniques used in flow field optimization and performance enhancement of rotating machinery. To understand the effects of splitter blades to the steady and unsteady influence of PAT, numerical research was performed. 3D Navier-Stokes solver CFX was used in the performance prediction and analysis of PAT’s performance. Results show that splitter blades have a positive impact on PAT’s performance. With the increase of splitter blades, its required pressure head is dropped and its efficiency is increased. Unsteady pressure field analysis and comparison show that the unsteady pressure field within PAT is improved when splitter blades are added to impeller flow passage. To verify the accuracy of numerical prediction methods, an open PAT test rig was built at Jiangsu University. The PAT was manufactured and tested. Comparison between experimental and numerical results shows that the discrepancy between numerical and experimental results is acceptable. CFD can be used in the performance prediction and optimization of PAT.
Highlights
Small hydroelectric power stations became attractive for generating electrical energy after the oil price crisis of the seventies
Current research on PAT mainly focuses on the development of accurate prediction models for the turbine operation of different designs of centrifugal pumps [2,3,4]
The comparison between experimental and steady-state numerical results indicates that the grid discretization and turbulence model are good for the PAT numerical simulation
Summary
Small hydroelectric power stations became attractive for generating electrical energy after the oil price crisis of the seventies. Cost per kW energy produced by these stations is higher than the hydroelectric power plants with large capacity. We considered the idea of using pumps as hydraulic turbines an attractive and important alternative. Current research on PAT mainly focuses on the development of accurate prediction models for the turbine operation of different designs of centrifugal pumps [2,3,4]. The optimization of PAT means generating more energy from current small hydropower resources. Splitter blades technique is one of the techniques frequently used in turbomachinery design and application [9,10,11]. We consider the idea of adding splitter blades to PAT’s impeller flow passage
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