CFD Analysis on the Balancing Hole Design for Magnetic Drive Centrifugal Pumps

Won-Sik Kim and Jeong-Eui Yun
Additional contact information
Won-Sik Kim: Department of Mechanical & Vehicle Engineering, Kangwon National University, 346, Jungang-ro, Samcheok-si, Gangwon-do 25913, Korea
Jeong-Eui Yun: School of Mechanical System Engineering, Kangwon National University, 346, Jungang-ro, Samcheok-si, Gangwon-do 25913, Korea

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 22, 1-16

Abstract: Balancing holes in single-suction centrifugal pumps are generally applied to attenuate the axial thrust caused by a pressure difference between the front side of a shroud and the rear side of a hub of an impeller. The magnetic drive pump, the subject of this study, has a leak-free airtight structure and an integrated structure of the impeller and inner magnet. To prevent the performance degradation of the magnetic drive caused by heat during operation, complex cooling flow paths connected to balancing holes have been designed so that a sufficient amount of coolant would flow around the magnetic drive. Due to this spatial characteristic, when balancing holes are applied to a magnetic drive pump, the balancing hole flow path becomes very long compared to that of balancing holes applied to conventional pumps. When the balancing hole flow path is long, the flow path loss increases, which in turn increases the adverse effect of balancing holes on the pump performance. Therefore, the design of highly efficient balancing holes to which a sufficient amount of coolant can be supplied is critical in a magnetic drive pump. To this end, two types of balancing holes were investigated in this study. First, balancing holes are drilled in the impeller that rotates during operation. Second, balancing holes are drilled in the inner shaft installed to maintain the centre of rotation of the impeller during pump operation. The results confirmed the flow characteristics of the two types of balancing holes and verified the effect of each balancing hole on the pump performance. Finally, this study found that drilling balancing holes in the shaft were appropriate for the magnetic drive pump, and this type can maintain relatively high efficiency and supply a sufficient amount of coolant to maintain the efficiency of the magnetic drive.

Keywords: centrifugal pump; magnetic drive pump; impeller; balancing hole; axial thrust (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: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/22/5865/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/22/5865/ (text/html)

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:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:22:p:5865-:d:442709

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().