Investigation of the impact of trapezoidal suction surface impeller on internal flow and energy conversion in side channel pumps

Fan Wu, Fan Zhang, Ke Chen, Xi Xu and Shouqi Yuan

Energy, 2025, vol. 335, issue C

Abstract: This study investigates energy conversion enhancement in side channel pumps through trapezoidal suction surface impeller optimization. Analyses of impellers with varying suction angles demonstrate that θ = 45° trapezoidal scheme achieves superior hydraulic performance, exhibiting a 9.85 % head increase and 3.45 % efficiency improvement over conventional triangular impellers. Pressure and mass flow exchange analysis reveals accelerated formation of stable energy transfer regions and enhanced pressurization through amplified pressure pulsations effectively converted into hydraulic head. Vortex dynamics (Ω-criterion) and entropy production evaluation confirm that the trapezoidal geometry suppresses high-intensity vortexes via streamlined separation at the suction surface's planar extension, reducing turbulent dissipation losses by 8.6 %. While expanded suction surface area marginally elevates wall entropy, this trade-off is outweighed by the dominant reduction in turbulent dissipation. The trapezoidal geometry fundamentally restructures energy conversion pathways by transforming chaotic vortex-driven dissipation into organized pressure work, establishing an efficiency-enhancing paradigm for ultra-low specific speed pumps. These findings provide mechanistic insights into optimizing energy transfer continuity in complex helical flow systems.

Keywords: Side channel pump; Entropy production; Vortex; Energy conversion; Energy loss (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544225038757
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:335:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225038757

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2025.138233

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().