Abstract
Mixed flow pumps driven by hydraulic motors have been widely used in drainage in recent years, especially in emergency pump trucks. Limited by the power of the truck engine, its operating efficiency is one of the key factors affecting the rescue task. In this study, an automated optimization platform was developed to improve the operating efficiency of the mixed flow pump. A three-dimensional hydraulic design, meshing, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) were executed repeatedly by the main program. The objective function is to maximize hydraulic efficiency under design conditions. Both meridional shape and blade profiles of the impeller and diffuser were optimized at the same time. Based on the CFD results obtained by Optimal Latin Hypercube (OLH) sampling, surrogate models of the head and hydraulic efficiency were built using the Radial Basis Function (RBF) neural network. Finally, the optimal solution was obtained by the Multi- Island Genetic Algorithm (MIGA). The local energy loss was further compared with the baseline scheme using the entropy generation method. Through the regression analysis, it was found that the blade angles have the most significant influence on pump efficiency. The CFD results show that the hydraulic efficiency under design conditions increased by 5.1%. After optimization, the incidence loss and flow separation inside the pump are obviously improved. Additionally, the overall turbulent eddy dissipation and entropy generation were significantly reduced. The experimental results validate that the maximum pump efficiency increased by 4.3%. The optimization platform proposed in this study will facilitate the development of intelligent optimization of pumps.
Highlights
With the emergence of global extremes in recent years, the frequency of disasters such as droughts and urban flooding has suddenly increased, which greatly affect security and the economy
The effect of the divergence angle of the diffuser on the performance of a centrifugal pump was studied by Khoeini et al [10]; the results show that the diffuser parameters have a remarkable influence on the head and efficiency
If the accuracy is lower than the threshold value, Design of experiment (DOE) will be repeatedly performed until satisfactory results are obtained
Summary
With the emergence of global extremes in recent years, the frequency of disasters such as droughts and urban flooding has suddenly increased, which greatly affect security and the economy. Based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technology, Kim et al [2] performed optimization of the meridional shape of a mixed flow pump impeller to improve its suction performance. Much of the research involves the improvement of the impeller and diffuser, the blade profile of the mixed flow pump is space-distorted and too many geometric parameters make it difficult to be fully optimized. Xu et al [20] conducted the multi-parameter optimization of a mixed flow pump based on the orthogonal experimental method and RBF neural network, while the meridional parameters of impeller were not included. Variables involving the meridional shape and blade profile of both the impeller and diffuser were optimized to fully consider the rotor–stator interaction.
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