The Effect of Pump Intake Leaning Angle and Flow Rate on the Internal Flow of Pump Sump

Abstract

Pump sump system or pumping stations are built to draw water from a source such as river and used for irrigation, thermal power plants etc. If pump sump is improperly shaped or sized, air entraining vortices or submerged vortices may develop. This may greatly affect pump operation if vortices grow to an appreciable extent. Moreover, the noise and vibration of the pump can be increased by the remaining of vortices in the pump flow passage. Therefore, the vortices in the pump flow passage have to be reduced for a good performance of pump sump station. In this study, the effect of pump intake leaning angle and flow rate on the pump sump internal flow has been investigated. There are three cases with different leaning angle. Moreover, a pipe type with elbow also has been studied. The flow rate with three classes of air entraining vortices has been examined and investigated by decreasing the water level. The result shows that the air entraining vortices easily occurs at the pump intake with large leaning angle. Moreover, the elbow type of the pump intake easily occurs air entraining vortices at the high flow rate (or velocity) in comparison to other pump intake type.