The development of a high-speed miniature pump with dynamic bearing

Abstract

Abstract A high-speed miniature pump is proposed for the application in aerospace area, where high efficiency and reliability are expected for the pump under the microgravity operation condition. In this paper, a miniature centrifugal pump with dynamic bearing is selected as the objective for the performance development. The prototype of the miniature pump is manufactured and tested by experiments at the rotational speed of 10,000r/min. The comparison of hydraulic performance near the design operation shows good agreement between the numerical results and experimental data. In order to improve hydraulic performance of the pump, the effects of splitter blades, number of blades, and wrap angle of blades are analyzed numerically. For each operating condition, in order to compare the influence of splitter blades on the performance and the internal flow, the impellers with and without splitter blades are designed respectively. In addition, for the splitter blades, the influence of the splitter blade position and the splitter blade thickness are also investigated. The numerical result shows that the highest efficiency among all the impellers is achieved with the blade number of 5, wrap angle of 160° and with no splitter blades. Moreover, for the impellers with the splitter blades, hydraulic performance of the pump is mainly decided by the main blades, while the splitter blades hardly help to improve the efficiency of the pump. The study is helpful for the further application of the high-speed miniature pump in various societies.