A Comparative Study on Centrifugal Pump Designs and Two-Phase Flow Characteristic under Inlet Gas Entrainment Conditions

Qiaorui Si, Gérard Bois, Minquan Liao, Haoyang Zhang, Qianglei Cui and Shouqi Yuan
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Qiaorui Si: National Research Center of Pumps, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, Jiangsu, China
Gérard Bois: LMFL, FRE CNRS 3723, Arts et Métiers ParisTech, 59046 Lille, Nord, France
Minquan Liao: National Research Center of Pumps, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, Jiangsu, China
Haoyang Zhang: National Research Center of Pumps, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, Jiangsu, China
Qianglei Cui: National Research Center of Pumps, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, Jiangsu, China
Shouqi Yuan: National Research Center of Pumps, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, Jiangsu, China

Energies, 2019, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-25

Abstract: Capability for handling entrained gas is an important design consideration for centrifugal pumps used in petroleum, chemistry, nuclear applications. An experimental evaluation on their two phase performance is presented for two centrifugal pumps working under air-water mixture fluid conditions. The geometries of the two pumps are designed for the same flow rate and shut off head coefficient with the same impeller rotational speed. Overal pump performance and unsteady pressure pulsation information are obtained at different rotational speeds combined with various inlet air void fractions ( α 0 ) up to pump stop condition. As seen from the test results, pump 2 is able to deliver up to 10% two-phase mixtures before pump shut-off, whereas pump 1 is limited to 8%. In order to understand the physics of this flow phenomenon, a full three-dimensional unsteady Reynolds Average Navier-Stokes (3D-URANS) calculation using the Euler–Euler inhomogeneous method are carried out to study the two phase flow characteristics of the model pump after corresponding experimental verification. The internal flow characteristics inside the impeller and volute are physically described using the obtained air distribution, velocity streamline, vortex pattern and pressure pulsation results under different flow rates and inlet void fractions. Pump performances would deteriorate during pumping two-phase mixture fluid compared with single flow conditions due to the phase separating effect. Some physical explanation about performance improvements on handing maximum acceptable inlet two phase void fractions capability of centrifugal pumps are given.

Keywords: centrifugal pump; gas entrainment; two-phase flow model; flow characteristic; handing capability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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