Numerical Prediction of the Effect of Typical Particle Properties on a Centrifugal Pump

Abstract

To grasp the hydraulic performance and abrasion characteristics of a particular model pump before manufacture, this paper firstly numerically calculates the three-dimensional viscous steady incompressible flow of a solid-liquid two-phase flow centrifugal pump with specific speed n $_{\mathrm {s}}=93$ based on the Mixture model and obtains the influences of the three typical particle attributes (particle diameter, solid-phase concentration, and solid-phase density) on the hydraulic performance of the calculation model pump. Subsequently, numerical prediction of the abrasion of major overflow parts due to particle collision impacts was carried out based on the DPM model. The results show that the solid-phase concentration has the most significant effect on the hydraulic performance of solid-liquid two-phase flow pumps, and the diameter of solid-phase particles has the most minor effect. With the increase of particle diameter and solid-phase concentration, head and efficiency are gradually reduced. In contrast, with the increase of solid-phase density, head and efficiency show a trend of increasing and decreasing. The most severe decrease in hydraulic performance occurs at a Cv of 30%, where the head decreases to 20.19m, and the efficiency decreases to 66.90%. With the increase of the three typical solid-phase properties, the abrasion in the overflow inner wall surface of the solid-liquid two-phase flow centrifugal pump shows different degrees of deterioration, and the maximum degree of wear of about 0.0010kg/m2s.

Keywords

• Centrifugal pump
• solid-liquid two-phase flow
• particle property
• performance prediction
• abrasion