Article 3 (2019) - Wang, Jing, Et Al.
Article 3 (2019) - Wang, Jing, Et Al.
Article 3 (2019) - Wang, Jing, Et Al.
Abstract
In order to enhance the efficiency of centrifugal pump, the structure of a centrifugal pump with vaned diffuser, whose
specific speed is 190, was numerically improved by trimming back-blades of impeller and smoothing sharp corner in
annular chamber. The energy performance, the internal flow field, the axial force, the radial force, and the pressure pul-
sation of the pump were analyzed. Results show that efficiency of the improving scheme 1 under the design flow rate is
77.47%, which can balance 69.82% of the axial force, while efficiency of the improving scheme 2 under the design flow
rate is the maximum, which could still balance 62.74% of the axial force. The pressure pulsations of the improving
scheme 2 at the typical monitoring points are less than that of the improving scheme 1 and the original scheme. The dif-
ference of the radial force peak between the improving scheme 1 and the improving scheme 2 is very small. The vector
distributions of the radial force of the improving scheme 1 and the improving scheme 2 are more uniform than that of
the original scheme. Considering the efficiency, pressure pulsation, and axial force, experiment measurements on the
improving scheme 2 were carried out to verify the effectiveness of the improvement result. Results of energy perfor-
mance experiment show that efficiency of the improving scheme 2 under the design flow rate is 76.48%, which is 5.26
percentage points higher than that of the original scheme.
Keywords
Centrifugal pump with vaned diffuser, efficiency improvement, axial force, radial force, pressure pulsation
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2 Advances in Mechanical Engineering
Figure 2. Experiment bench of the pump: (a) schematic diagram of the experiment bench and (b) experiment bench.
Improving schemes
In order to improve efficiency of the centrifugal pump
Figure 3. Energy performance curve in the pump.
with vaned diffuser, the back-blades of the impeller
were trimmed to reduce the power consumption.
Improving schemes are shown in Figure 4. Moreover,
a flow meter, two pressure transmitters, a three-phase
the chamfer of the annual chamber in the original
pulse width modulation (PWM) digital power meter,
scheme was made with sharp corner. In order to
and so on. The flow rate, head, and power were mea-
improve the internal flow field of the pump, sharp
sured several times by the flow meter, pressure
4 Advances in Mechanical Engineering
Boundary conditions
The numerical simulation was carried out by ANSYS
CFX software. The fluid medium chosen was water.
The impeller and back-blades of impeller were arranged
in a rotation domain with a rotational speed of 1450 r/
Figure 4. Trimming back-blades of impeller. min. Other domains were set to be static domains.
There are three pairs of static and dynamic interfaces:
impeller and gap, back-blades of impeller and gap, and
impeller and suction chamber. Other interfaces were
defined as static interfaces. The inlet pressure was set as
the total pressure of 1 atm, and the outlet was set to be
the calculated mass flow rate. The walls were set as no-
slip condition, and the roughness was 0.025 mm.
Axial force
The axial forces of the three schemes under the differ-
ent flow rate are shown in Figure 10. The axial force
decreases with the increase of flow rate. In contrast to
the three schemes, the parameters of the back-blades of
impeller in original scheme are most appropriate.
Because the ability to balance the axial force gradually
decreases after trimming the diameter and width of the
back-blades of impeller. Under the design flow rate, the
Figure 8. Energy performance curve with numerical simulation. axial force of the model without back-blades is 3000 N.
The original scheme can balance 89.47% of the axial
force, while the improving scheme 1 can balance only
monitoring point P2 at outlet of the vaned diffuser, the 69.82% of the axial force and the improving scheme 2
monitoring point P3 at the annular chamber near the can balance only 62.74% of the axial force. The differ-
chamfer, and the monitoring point P4 at the outlet were ence of the axial force between improving scheme 1
selected, which are shown in Figure 7. and improving scheme 2 is 7.08 percentage points.
Because the rotation speed of the pump n is 1450 r/ Although trimming the back-blades of the impeller
min in this experiment, axis-passing frequency of the reduces their ability to balance axial force, it can greatly
pump is 25 Hz. Due to the impeller with five blades, the improve efficiency. Therefore, the improving scheme 2,
blade-passing frequency of the impeller is 125 Hz (i.e. which is better than improving scheme 1, was chosen to
5th harmonic of axis-passing frequency). perform the subsequent experiment verification.
Figure 9. Absolute velocity distribution in middle section: (a) original scheme, (b) improving scheme 1, and (c) improving scheme 2.
Figure 12. Radial force in the annular chamber: (a) time Figure 14. Pressure pulsation at P1: (a) time domain and
domain and (b) frequency domain. (b) frequency domain.
Experiment verification
In order to verify the feasibility of structural improve-
ment, experimental measurements on the improving
scheme 2 were carried out. The energy performance
curves of the original scheme and the improving
scheme 2 are shown in Figure 18. As can be seen from
Figure 18, the differences between head and efficiency
of the pump before and after optimization are very
small under the small flow rate. With increase of the
flow rate, the difference also increases. Under the
design flow rate, the efficiency of the improving scheme
2 is 76.48%, which is 5.26 percentage points higher
Figure 18. Comparison of energy performance. than that of the original scheme. The effect of struc-
tural improvement is very obvious.
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the axial force in the pump. Under the design flow of external performance of prototype centrifugal pump
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Declaration of conflicting interests line wrapping angle variation in a super-low specific
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with speed centrifugal pump. Proc IMechE, Part C: J Mechan-
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this ical Engineering Science 2018; 232: 4301–4311.
article. 13. Wang K, Xia C, Zhang Z, et al. Experimental investiga-
tion of pressure fluctuation, vibration and noise in a mul-
tistage pump. Shock Vib 2018; 2018: 2784079.
Funding 14. Liu H, Cui J, Tan M, et al. CFD calculation of clocking
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup- effect on centrifugal pump. Trans Chin Soc Agric Eng
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this 2013; 29: 67–73.
article: This work was supported by the National Key 15. Junaidi MAR, Kumari NBVL, Samad MA, et al. CFD
Research and Development Program of China (grant no.: simulation to enhance the efficiency of centrifugal pump
2016YFB0200901), the National Natural Science Foundation by application of inner guide vanes. Mater Today Proc
of China (grant nos.: 51579117 and 51779108), and Six 2015; 2: 2073–2082.
Talent Peaks Project in Jiangsu Province of China (grant no.: 16. Wang K, Lu X, He X, et al. Experimental investigation
2018-GDZB-154). of vibration characteristics in a centrifugal pump with
vaned diffuser. Shock Vib 2018; 2018: 9486536.
17. Yuan D, Han Y, Cong X, et al. Design and optimization
ORCID iD of new-type space guide vanes for multistage centrifugal
Kai Wang https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2892-2117 pump. J Drain Irrig Mach Eng 2015; 33: 853–858.
18. Zhu X, Jiang W, Li G, et al. Numerical analysis of
hydraulic performance in centrifugal pump with vane dif-
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