Numerical Simulation Research Of The Flow In The Centrifugal Pump

Centrifugal pump is widely applied in different kinds of industrial and agricultural departments, which brings about tremendous electrical power consumption. However, its efficiency is generally low, therefore it is important for us to improve design level of pumps.With the development of CFD softwares in our country, more and more people pay attention to applying CFD to design pumps.In this paper, the method of numerical simulation has been carried out for the flow field of the centrifugal pump, and the research that how different numbers of blade influences on the performance of centrifugal pump has been done.The paper depicts and discusses some turbulence models.Taking MH48-12.5 for example,the whole flow passage models(four kinds of models with different blade numbers) including inlet-pipe,impeller,volute and outlet-pipe have been made,using Pro/ENGINEER software. FLUENT, as a kind of CFD software, is used to simulate numerically the interior turbulent flow of the centrifugal pump under different blade numbers and different operation conditions.Much information, such as velocity and pressure distribution of the whole flow field, has been obtained. The interior flow fields of impeller and volute in different operation conditions and the whole flow fields in different blade numbers are analysed and the simulated conclusions are in accordance to theory. Some bad flow phenomenons such as swirl and reflow are found.The predicted performance curves(from three blades to six blades)have been compared to experimental curves and it comes to the conclusion that the tendencies of computational curves are consistent with ones of experimental curves.There is a relatively big deviation among head predicted results, and shaft-power predicted results are all lower than experimental values, and efficiency predicted results are most close to experimental values. Because the numerical simulation isn't restricted by the experimental conditions, specific datum can be obtained. All these investigations provide important references for improving the design level of centrifugal pump.