Flow Simulation and Performance Prediction of Centrifugal Pumps Using CFD-Tool

Abstract

With the aid of computational fluid dynamics, the complex internal flows in water pump impellers can be well predicted, thus facilitating the product development process of pumps. In this paper a commercial CFD code was used to solve the governing equations of the flow field. A 2-D simulation of turbulent fluid flow is presented to visualize the flow in a centrifugal pump, including the pressure and velocity distributions. The standard k-ε turbulence model and SIMPLEC algorithm were chosen for turbulence model and pressure-velocity coupling respectively. The simulation was steady and moving reference frame was used to consider the impeller-volute interaction. The head and efficiency at different flow rates are predicted and they agree well with those available in literature for similar pump. From the simulation results it was observed that the flow change has an important effect on the location and area of low pressure region behind the blade inlet and the direction of velocity at impeller inlet. From the study it was observed that FLUENT simulation results give good prediction of performance of centrifugal pump and may help to reduce the required experimental work for the study of centrifugal pump performance.

Keywords: Centrifugal Pump, FLUENT, Performance prediction, CFD