Studies on the Influence of Various Blade Outlet Angles in a Centrifugal Pump when Handling Viscous Fluids

Abstract

In this study the centrifugal pump performances with different blade outlet angles are tested when handling water and viscous oils as Newtonian fluids. Also, this study shows a numerical simulation of the three-dimensional fluid flows inside the centrifugal pump with different blade outlet angles. For these numerical simulations the SIMPLEC algorithm is used for solving governing equations of incompressible viscous/turbulent flows through the pump at different operating conditions. The k-e turbulence model is adopted to describe the turbulent flow process. These simulations have been made with a steady calculation using the multiple reference frames (MRF) technique to take into account the impeller- volute interaction. Numerical results are compared with the experimental characteristic curve for each viscous fluid. The results show that when the outlet angle increases, the centrifugal pump performance handling viscous fluids improves. This improvement is due to decrease of wake at the exit of impeller. Also the results show that the well-known jet/wake flow model is not found in the impeller simulations.