Volute Tongue Research Articles

Numerical investigation of unsteady turbulent flow in a centrifugal pump at partial load

The unsteady non-cavitation and cavitation turbulent flows in a centrifugal pump at partial load condition are numerically investigated by CFX 13.0. The numerical framework employs the combination of RNG k-ε turbulence model and transport equation cavitation model, in which the effects of compressibility of fluid on cavitation region and pressure fluctuation on saturation pressure are both taken into consideration. The good agreement between the numerical and experimental values validates that the numerical framework can accurately predict the turbulent flows in the centrifugal pump. The complex flow characteristics in impeller at non-cavitation and cavitation conditions are revealed. For the noncavitation flow, the dominant frequencies of pressure fluctuation of monitoring points in impeller are all the Impeller Rotation Frequency 24.17Hz. The maximum value of pressure fluctuation on the blade pressure side appears at the 0.8 chord length from the blade leading edge due to a clockwise rotating vortex, which incepts, develops and disappears when the corresponding blade passes through the volute tongue. The dominant frequencies of pressure fluctuation of monitoring points in volute are the Blade Pass Frequency 145 Hz or twice of it. The maximum value of pressure fluctuation in the volute appears near the tongue region, where the flow fields are uneven with strong second flow in the cross section. For the cavitation flow, as the cavitation develops at the blade leading edge, the turbulent flows in the impeller are greatly influenced by the bubble shedding and collapse. The maximum values of pressure fluctuation in impeller increase with the development of cavitation, and reach the largest magnification of about 2.0 in comparison to the non-cavitation flow when the pressure at the pump inlet is very low. The complicated phenomenon of unsteady turbulent flow in a centrifugal pump indicates that the vortex has great influence on the flow pattern.

Numerical Research about Influence of Blade Outlet Angle on Flow-Induced Noise and Vibration for Centrifugal Pump

A hybrid numerical method was used to calculate the flow-induced noise and vibration of the centrifugal pump in the paper. The unsteady flows inside the centrifugal pumps with different blade outlet angles were simulated firstly. The unsteady pressure on the inner surface of the volute and the unsteady force applied on the impeller were analyzed. Then the vibration of the volute and sound field were calculated based on an acoustic-vibro-coupling method. The results show that the pump head has increased 7% while the hydraulic efficiency decreased 11.75% as blade outlet angles increased from 18° to 39°. The amplitude of pressure fluctuation at the first blade passing frequency has decreased but increased at the second-order blade passing frequency as the angle growing. The total fluctuation power near volute tongue goes up about 12% every 3° increment of blade outlet angle. The results also show that vibrating-velocity of the volute at second-order blade passing frequency is much higher than at other frequencies, and the velocity increases rapidly as blade outlet angle varies from 18° to 39°. At the same time, the sound pressure level outside the pump has increased about 8.6 dB when the angle increased from 18° to 39°.

Numerical Investigation on a Prototype Centrifugal Pump Subjected to Fluctuating Rotational Speed

The rotational speed of pumps often encounters fluctuation in engineering for some reasons. In this paper, in order to study the transient response characteristic of a prototype centrifugal pump subjected to fluctuating rotational speed, a closed-loop pipe system including the pump is built to accomplish unsteady flow calculations in which the boundary conditions at the inlet and the outlet of the pump are not required to be set. The external performance results show that the head’s responsiveness to the fluctuating rotational speed is very good, while the flow rate’s responsiveness is slightly delayed. The variation tendencies of the static pressures at the inlet and the outlet of the pump are almost completely opposite, wherein the variation tendency of the static pressure at the outlet is identical with that of the rotational speed. The intensity of the turbulence energy in each impeller channel is relatively uniform in the transient flow calculations, while, in the quasi-steady flow calculation, it becomes weaker in a channel closed to the volute tongue. The nondimensional flow rate and head coefficients are dependent on the rotational speed, and their variation tendencies are opposite to that of the fluctuating rotational speed as a whole.

Prediction and Reduction of Aerodynamic Noise of the Multiblade Centrifugal Fan

An aerodynamic and aeroacoustic investigation of the multiblade centrifugal fan is proposed in this paper, and a hybrid technique of combining flow field calculation and acoustic analysis is applied to solve the aeroacoustic problem of multiblade centrifugal fan. The unsteady flow field of the multiblade centrifugal fan is predicted by solving the incompressible Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations with conventional computing techniques for fluid dynamics. The principal noise source induced is extracted from the calculation of the flow field by using acoustic principles, and the modeled sources on inner and outer surfaces of the volute are calculated with multiregional boundary element method (BEM). Through qualitative analysis, the sound pressure amplitude distribution of the multiblade centrifugal fan in near field is given and the sound pressure level (SPL) spectrum diagram of monitoring points in far field is obtained. Based on the analysis results, the volute tongue structure is adjusted and then a low-noise design for the centrifugal fan is proposed. The comparison of noise tests shows the noise reduction of improved fan model is more obvious, which is in good agreement with the prediction using the hybrid techniques.

Analysis of Relative Contributions of Tonal Noise Sources in Volute Tongue Region of a Centrifugal Fan

ABSTRACT: Interaction between the unsteady flow emitted from the blade of the centrifugal fan and the volute tongue region of fan duct is known as the main noise source of the centrifugal fan. In this paper, the relative contributions of the volute tongue region of the centrifugal fan is analyzed to utilize as the foundation data of low noise design. The internal hybrid CAA (Computational Aero-Acoustics) method is used to predict noise radiated from the main noise source. This method is the noise prediction technique using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics), Acoustic analogy, and BEM(Boundary Element Method). The relative contributions of the centrifugal fan volute tongue region using the hybrid CAA method show that the region between the cut-off and the scroll has high contribution than the region between the cut-off and the outlet and the hub region of blade has high contribution than the shroud region of blade. These results is utilized as the important data for the development of low noise centrifugal fan.Keywords:

Experimental and numerical analysis on noise reduction in a multi-blade centrifugal fan

In this work, analysis on noise source and reduction in a multi-blade centrifugal fan used for air-conditioners was carried out by experimental and numerical methods. Firstly, an experimental system using microphone mounted on volute surface for measuring surface pressure fluctuations of volute was designed and introduced, then surface pressure fluctuations of the whole volute for a multi-blade centrifugal fan were measured by this system, and the inlet noise for this fan was also obtained. And then, based on the experimental results, the aerodynamic noise source of the studied fan was analysed. The surface pressure fluctuations of the volute showed that there were largest surface pressure fluctuations near the volute tongue, and peaks appeared at the Blade Passing Frequency (BPF). The spectra of fan inlet noise showed that the peaks also appeared at BPF, and noise levels in a wide range of frequency were also larger. Secondly, the internal flow of the fan was simulated by commercial software under the same conditions with the experiment, and then the fluid flow and acoustic power field were obtained and discussed. The contours of acoustic power level showed that the larger noise was generated at the impeller area close to the outlet of scroll and at the volute tongue, which is same as that from experiment. Based on all of the results, we can find that the vortex noise is an important part of fan noise for the studied fan, and the rotation noise also cannot be neglected. Finally, several reduction methods that are thought to be effective based on experimental and numerical results were suggested.

Application of energy gradient theory in flow instability in a centrifugal pump

The flow instability in a centrifugal pump is studied using the energy gradient theory. Since the Re is high, the base flow is assumed to be turbulent. The distribution of the energy gradient function K at various flow rates is obtained from numerical simulations. According to the energy gradient method, the area with larger value of K is the place to cause instability and to be of high turbulence intensity. The results show that instability is easier to be excited in the area of impeller outlet and volute tongue. In order to improve the stability of centrifugal pumps working under low flow rate condition, carefulness must be taken in these two key areas.

Simulation and Analysis on the Temperature Distribution of the Heating Channel in a Washer-Dryer

In order to study the characteristics of the temperature field of the heating system in a washer-dryer, a numerical model to compute airflow field and temperature field is established according to the theory of fluid-solid coupled heat transfer. Simulation is realized based on the finite element method and verified with tests. The simulation results are in good consistency with the test result on the three aspects of temperature distributions, ranges and fluctuation tendencies. The errors of the lowest, highest and average temperature are all within 5.38%. Influencing factors leading to the offset of the high-temperature region in the downstream heating channel can be found from the valid simulation and they can provide theoretical basis for further optimization. The simulation results show that the configuration of the part of channel between the volute tongue and the heater leads to the transverse offset, and the triangular hump leads to the longitudinal offset.

Simulation of near surge instabilities onset in a turbocharger compressor

This study focuses on numerical simulations of a small automotive turbocharger compressor stage. Two medium speed characteristics were reproduced from nominal operating points to surge and were compared with experimental measurements. The aim of this study is to analyze the flow unsteadiness occurring near the surge line. The complete geometry of the impeller is meshed; hence, no spatio-temporal hypothesis is done during simulations. The main flow patterns are investigated to identify structures that might be responsible of surge inception. Results show that both impeller and diffuser are affected by stall. Blade channels are affected by a complete shroud recirculation extending from upstream of the impeller inlet to the diffuser inlet. Three radial recirculation zones are detected on the vaneless diffuser walls, strongly influenced by the two-pike asymmetric pressure field induced by the volute tongue. Its influence is observed at the inlet of the compressor, increasing the inter-blade flow unsteadiness.

Numerical methodology for the assessment of relative and absolute deterministic flow structures in the analysis of impeller–tongue interactions for centrifugal fans

In this paper a numerical methodology to segregate relative and absolute flow structures, allowing a deep analysis of the impeller–tongue interaction in centrifugal fans, is presented. The procedure, based on a deterministic decomposition of the internal flow fields, is applied for the first time in blade-to-blade planes of radial turbomachinery. Previous numerical results, obtained with a viscous 3D unsteady solver, already validated by the authors and available in the literature, are used as a database for the numerical routines. Interpolation and relocating operations of the velocity fields between CFD meshes and post-processing grids are presented and performed for different flow rates of a squirrel cage fan. This numerical technique is shown as an ideal framework to advance in the physical comprehension of the complexity, three-dimensionality and unsteadiness of the flow structures in the interaction regions of centrifugal fans. Additionally, the different contributors to the unsteady forces on the blades are also addressed, providing a valuable insight to identify the origin of the interaction phenomena for both diagnosis and redesign criteria of impeller and volute geometries.The squirrel cage fan studied is a small centrifugal fan with a twin impeller configuration, each with 23 forward curved blades, a nominal flow rate at around 352m3/h and a specific speed ns=1.9. This type of squirrel cage fans is often used as blowers for automobile applications or for small industrial equipment. The flow in this kind of fans happens to be quite complex and with unsteady features. Unsteady flow separation at the machine inlet or at the impeller blades and a variety of flow induced vibrations is found for most of the operation conditions. In this context, the deterministic decomposition becomes an essential tool to analyze the main flow structures, like the evaluation of the non-uniformities induced by the volute tongue over the blade-to-blade distributions within the impeller. As a consequence, fluctuation levels in the blade loadings, derived from deterministic non-uniformities, can be provided in the relative frame of reference. The practical applications of the conclusions do imply a progress in the knowledge of the working parameters for machines that affect in a direct way to the passengers comfort.

Numerical Prediction of Radial Force in Hydraulic Turbine Based on Fluent

Two centrifugal pumps in reversal were selected as hydraulic turbines, one of which was equipped with a guide vane. Flow performance was simulated by Fluent. Radial forces of hydraulic turbine in different conditions were predicted. It was shown: when pumps in reversal were used as turbines, The radial forces were produced by the uneven dispersion of pressure in runner inlet. The radial forces increased with the increasing of discharge. Equipped with a guide vane, The inlet pressure in hydraulic turbine runner distributed more uniform than before, and the radial forces were reduced. No guide vane, the vector direction of radial force distributed between Volute Tongue and section VIII, while with a guide vane, the vector direction of radial force distributed between section IV and section VI. By adding guide vane for hydraulic turbine,the uniformity of pressure distribution in runner inlet can be improved and the radial force be decreased.

Fluid Dynamics Characteristics during Stall Inception Process in a Centrifugal Fan

Based on the three-dimensional elliptic governing equations and the throttle model, an unsteady numerical simulation of rotating stall is undertaken in the case of G4-73 type centrifugal fan and the correctness of simulation results is verified by experiments. In this study a new rotating stall inception criterion is put forward, that the inlet flow or outlet back pressure fluctuations gradually increase in the value range. Numerical results show that the stall inception comes in obvious modal waveform, which belongs to the suction side stall caused by the incident angle changes due to the decrease of the flow. The relative velocity distribution of the impeller at different times indicates that the first bottleneck area occurs in the impeller channel near the volute tongue, while the other flow passages get improved and the flow field is unevenly distributed along the circumferential direction.

The change of the inlet geometry of a centrifugal compressor stage and its influence on the compressor performance

The impact on the compressor performance is important for designing the inlet pipe of the centrifugal compressor of a vehicle turbocharger with different inlet pipes. First, an experiment was performed to determine the compressor performance from three cases: a straight inlet pipe, a long bent inlet pipe and a short bent inlet pipe. Next, dynamic sensors were installed in key positions to collect the sign of the unsteady pressure of the centrifugal compressor. Combined with the results of numerical simulations, the total pressure distortion in the pipes, the pressure distributions on the blades and the pressure variability in the diffuser are studied in detail. The results can be summarized as follows: a bent pipe results in an inlet distortion to the compressor, which leads to performance degradation, and the effect is more apparent as the mass flow rate increases. The distortion induced by the bent inlet is not only influenced by the distance between the outlet of the bent section and the leading edge of the impeller but also by the impeller rotation. The flow fields in the centrifugal impeller and the diffuser are influenced by a coupling effect produced by the upstream inlet distortion and the downstream blocking effect from the volute tongue. If the inlet geometry is changed, the distributions and the fluctuation intensities of the static pressure on the main blade surface of the centrifugal impeller and in the diffuser are changed accordingly.

Prediction and optimization of aerodynamic noise in an automotive air conditioning centrifugal fan

The high aerodynamic noise induced by automotive air conditioning systems has important effects on the ride comfort, and the centrifugal fan is the largest noise source in these systems. It is very important to reduce the aerodynamic noise generated by the centrifugal fan. The flow field and the sound field on the whole centrifugal fan configuration have been carried out using the computational fluid dynamics. Simulation results show that the sound pressure level near the outlet of the centrifugal fan is too high. Based on the relationship between flow characteristics and the aerodynamic noise, four parameters of the centrifugal fan, i.e., impeller blade’s outlet angle θ, volute tongue’s gap t, collector inclination angle β, and rotating speed n, were selected as design variables and optimized using response surface methodology. While keeping the function of flow rate unchanged, the peak noise level is reduced by 8 dB or 10.8%. The noise level is satisfactorily reduced.

Numerical simulation and analysis of solid-liquid two-phase flow in centrifugal pump

The flow with solid-liquid two-phase media inside centrifugal pumps is very complicated and the relevant method for the hydraulic design is still immature so far. There exist two main problems in the operation of the two-phase flow pumps, i.e., low overall efficiency and severe abrasion. In this study, the three-dimensional, steady, incompressible, and turbulent solid-liquid two-phase flows in a low-specific-speed centrifugal pump are numerically simulated and analyzed by using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code based on the mixture model of the two-phase flow and the RNG k-ɛ two-equation turbulence model, in which the influences of rotation and curvature are fully taken into account. The coupling between impeller and volute is implemented by means of the frozen rotor method. The simulation results predicted indicate that the solid phase properties in two-phase flow, especially the concentration, the particle diameter and the density, have strong effects on the hydraulic performance of the pump. Both the pump head and the efficiency are reduced with increasing particle diameter or concentration. However, the effect of particle density on the performance is relatively minor. An obvious jet-wake flow structure is presented near the volute tongue and becomes more remarkable with increasing solid phase concentration. The suction side of the blade is subject to much more severe abrasion than the pressure side. The obtained results preliminarily reveal the characteristics of solid-liquid two-phase flow in the centrifugal pump, and are helpful for improvement and empirical correction in the hydraulic design of centrifugal pumps.

Evaluation of Flow-Induced Dynamic Stress and Vibration of Volute Casing for a Large-Scale Double-Suction Centrifugal Pump

The transient analysis was carried out to investigate the dynamic stress and vibration of volute casing for a large double-suction centrifugal pump by using the transient fluid-structure interaction theory. The flow pulsations at flow rate ranging from 60% to 100% of the nominal flow rate (Qd) were taken as the boundary conditions for FEM analysis of the pump volute casing structure. The results revealed that, for all operating conditions, the maximum stress located at the volute tongue region, whereas the maximum vibration displacement happened close to the shaft hole region. It was also found that the blade passing frequency and its harmonics were dominant in the variations of dynamic stress and vibration displacement. The amplitude of the dominant frequency for the maximum stress detected at 0.6Qdwas 1.14 times that atQd, lower than the related difference observed for pressure fluctuations (3.23 times). This study provides an effective method to quantify the flow-induced structural dynamic characteristics for a large-scale double-suction pump. It can be used to direct the hydraulic and structural design and stable operation, as well as fatigue life prediction for large-scale pumps.

Experimental investigation of pressure instabilities affected by cavitation for a double-suction centrifugal pump

Cavitation is a common fault which has a close relationship with pressure instabilities in centrifugal pumps. In order to investigate the hydroacoustic response to cavitation phenomena, a pressure fluctuation experimental is carried out on a double-suction centrifugal pump. Frequency spectrum analysis and time-frequency joint analysis of pressure fluctuations in semi-spiral suction chamber and volute casing are presented based on fast Fourier transform (FFT) and adaptive optimal-kernel time-frequency representation (AOK TFR) methods. The results show that in semi-spiral suction chamber, as the available NPSH value continuously decreases, the frequencies affected by cavitation transfer to a lower frequency range and become relative higher concentrate in time-frequency representation. In volute casing, blade passage frequency (BPF), specific frequency at 1/2 of blade passage frequency (147 Hz) and some frequency bands are well captured. The amplitudes of BPF and BPF/2 are shown to have a reasonable dependence on available NPSH value, though the measuring location relative to volute tongue should be taken into account. Strong pulsation characteristics are observed on relative low available NPSH value conditions. Pressure fluctuation at impeller rotating frequency is shown to be sensitive with cavitation process, of which the amplitude sharply increases at first and then decreases.

Experimental study on the flow of a mixed flow pump impeller

Mixed flow pump is wildly used in many field, the performance of the whole pump is affected by the flow in the impeller to a great extend. To make clear the flow phenomena in the mixed flow impeller at design and off-design flow rate condition, a mixed flow unshrouded impeller was manufactured and the flow in the impeller at design and off-design flow rate was experimental measured by Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) in this paper. In the experiment test device, the volute was specially design and manufactured by transparent material. According to the experimental result, the distribution of time-average relatively velocity showed the velocity near blade pressure surface at design flow rate decreases and then increases from inlet to outlet of the impeller, and that near blade suction surface increase and then decreases. The velocity near the suction surface decrease from hub to casing, and the minimal velocity appears near the casing and suction surface. Near the impeller outlet, the relative velocity near blade pressure surface varies a little alone the span direction; Back-flow phenomena were found at passages outlet near casing and mid-span sections at partial flow rate. To clarify the effect of volute geometry on the velocity distribution, the flow in different impeller passages relatively to the volute tongue was test and the result showed that the velocity distribution in different passages was similar.

Stability Improvement of High-Pressure-Ratio Turbocharger Centrifugal Compressor by Asymmetric Flow Control-Part I: Non-Axisymmetrical Flow in Centrifugal Compressor.

This is Part I of a two-part paper documenting the development of a novel asymmetric flow control method to improve the stability of a high-pressure-ratio turbocharger centrifugal compressor. Part I focuses on the nonaxisymmetrical flow in a centrifugal compressor induced by the nonaxisymmetrical geometry of the volute while Part II describes the development of an asymmetric flow control method to avoid the stall on the basis of the characteristic of nonaxisymmetrical flow. To understand the asymmetries, experimental measurements and corresponding numerical simulation were carried out. The static pressure was measured by probes at different circumferential and stream-wise positions to gain insights about the asymmetries. The experimental results show that there is an evident nonaxisymmetrical flow pattern throughout the compressor due to the asymmetric geometry of the overhung volute. The static pressure field in the diffuser is distorted at approximately 90 deg in the rotational direction of the volute tongue throughout the diffuser. The magnitude of this distortion slightly varies with the rotational speed. The magnitude of the static pressure distortion in the impeller is a function of the rotational speed. There is a significant phase shift between the static pressure distributions at the leading edge of the splitter blades and the impeller outlet. The numerical steady state simulation neglects the aforementioned unsteady effects found in the experiments and cannot predict the phase shift, however, a detailed asymmetric flow field structure is obviously obtained.

Internal Unsteady Flow Induced Vibration in Centrifugal Pump

Centrifugal pump is an important installation for fluid delivery. The research on the unsteady flow in centrifugal pump is very meaningful to reducing vibration. The methods of numerical simulation were discussed. The unsteady pressure field was simulated by using Sliding Mesh (SM) model provided by Fluent. The time domain data for pressure were obtained at the monitoring points, and they were translated to frequency domain data by using FFT. The results show that the static pressure at the impeller outlet increases along the direction of impeller rotation from the position near the volute tongue. The pressure disturbance is relatively large near the volute tongue. The pressure disturbance at the impeller inlet is smaller than that at the impeller outlet. The volute tongue plays a key role in the flow induced vibration. The position, where the blade is in closest proximity to the head of volute tongue, is the turning point in the pressure fluctuation cycle. The maximum peak value of pressure fluctuation appears at 145Hz, which is the blade frequency. Other pressure peaks are evident at multiples of the blade frequency. Also the pressure amplitude decreases with increasing frequency.