The axial flow pump is a low head, high discharge pump usually applicable in drainage and irrigation facilities. A certain gap should be reserved between the impeller blade root and the impeller hub to ensure the blade adjustability to broaden the high-efficiency area. The pressure difference between its blade surface induces leakage flow in the root clearance region, which decreases hydraulic performance and operational stability. Therefore, this study was carried out to investigate the effect of root clearance on mechanical energy dissipation using numerical simulation and entropy production methods. The numerical model was validated with an external characteristics test, and unsteady flow simulations were conducted on the axial flow pump under four different root clearance radii. The maximum reductions of 15.5% and 6.8% for head and hydraulic efficiency are obtained for the largest root clearance of 8 mm, respectively. The dissipation based on entropy theory consists of indirect dissipation and neglectable direct dissipation. The leakage flow in the root clearance led to the distortion of the impeller’s flow pattern, and the indirect dissipation rate and overall dissipation of the impeller increased with increasing root clearance radius. The inflow pattern in the diffuser was also distorted by leakage flow. The diffuser’s overall dissipation, indirect dissipation rate on the blade surface, and indirect dissipation rate near inlet increased with increasing root clearance radius. The research could serve as a theoretical reference for the axial flow pump’s root clearance design for performance improvement and operational stability.

Mixed-flow pump is a general purpose hydraulic machinery in many fields of fluid transport for its advantages of wide efficient operation flow rate range, but its operation stability is restricted by cavitation. To obtain the cross effect of cavitation and flow rate on its pressure pulsation, a high-precision experimental system was first established to monitor the pressure signals at four key positions, obtaining their time domain; second, based on this tested results, time frequency domain analysis technique based on continuous wavelet transform was adopted to capture the temporal evolution; third, wavelet coherence value analysis was further adopted to diagnose the cavitation development speed at different spatial positions. Primary findings are as follows: (1) the secondary peaks induced by cavitation generated the discrete disturbance in low-frequency range, and the amplitudes at shaft frequency and blade passing frequency were both increased, with a worse time continuity. (2) Under 1.0 QBEP, the mixed flow pump had a best anti-cavitation performance. Under 0.8 QBEP, its internal flow pattern was easily to be disturbed by cavitation flow, while that under 1.2 QBEP had the fastest cavitation development speed. (3) Under the action of unstable potential flow, within the flow field near the rotor–static interface and the downstream, a close flow exchange was established between the cavitation bubbles and mainstream; thus, the pressure pulsation inside the volute became more sensitive to the cavitation development.

With the aim of investigating the influence of guide vane meridians on the external characteristics and internal flow field of the mixed-flow pump device, this research constructed seven guide vane meridians and applied computational fluid dynamic (CFD) and entropy production theory to investigate the spread of hydraulic loss in a mixed-flow pump. As observed, when the guide vane outlet diameter D_gvo decreased from 350 mm to 275 mm, the head and efficiency increased by 2.78% and 3.05% at 0.7 Q_des, respectively. At 1.3 Q_des, when D_gvo increased from 350 mm to 425 mm, the head and efficiency increased by 4.49% and 3.71%, respectively. At 0.7 Q_des and 1.0 Q_des, the entropy production of the guide vane increased with the increase of D_gvo due to flow separation. When D_gvo < 350 mm, at 1.0 Q_des and 1.3 Q_des, entropy production of the outlet channel increased as D_gvo decreased owing to the excessive flow rate, but at 0.7 Q_des, entropy production did not change much. When D_gvo > 350 mm, at 0.7 Q_des and 1.0 Q_des, due to the expansion of the channel section, the flow separation intensified, which resulted in an increase of the entropy production, but the entropy production decreased slightly at 1.3 Q_des. These results provide guidance for improving the efficiency of pumping stations.

Mixed-flow pumps with adjustable blades are widely used in municipal, agricultural, and hydropower applications. However, a limitation of adjustable blades is that the influence of the water pressure in the pump causes the rotation angle to deviate, which not only reduces the hydraulic efficiency of the pump and increases energy consumption, but it is also detrimental to the stable operation of the pump. To investigate the influence of blade rotation angle deviations (BRADs) on the hydraulic pulsation characteristics of a mixed-flow pump, in this study, a three-dimensional unsteady numerical simulation was adopted to analyze the effects of seven BRAD design schemes on the energy performance, pressure pulsation characteristics, and axial and radial forces in the impeller. When the rotation angle of a single blade deviated counterclockwise, the optimal hydraulic efficiency point of the mixed-flow pump moved toward larger flow rates, and vice versa. Unlike a situation with no BRADs, when there were BRADs, the central symmetry of the low-pressure area near the suction surface of the impeller blades was destroyed. BRADs led to increases in the pressure pulsation amplitudes at the inlet and outlet of the impeller. The dominant pressure pulsation frequencies near the shroud side at the inlet and outlet of the impeller were not affected by BRADs (both of them were equal to the blade frequency). However, the amplitude of the dominant pressure pulsation frequency at the impeller outlet and the radial force of the impeller both increased with increases in the absolute value of the deviation angle. Moreover, when the rotation angle of a single blade was only in the counterclockwise direction, the axial force of the impeller increased. This study can provide an engineering reference for the stability of mixed-flow pumps with BRADs.

In the present work, unsteady flow solved by the Reynolds time-averaged Navier–Stokes equation was investigated to determine the inflow distortion mechanism and the spatial distribution of hydraulic loss in a bidirectional axial flow pumping station (Case 1) based on the entropy production theory. A laboratory-scale performance experiment was also employed for the accuracy verification of the simulation approach, and an axial flow pump with pipe passages (Case 2) accompanying uniform inflow was utilized for analysis comparison. The results show that the non-uniform inflow causes a noticeable reduction in head and efficiency, as high as 27% and 21%, respectively, and the best efficiency point with uniform inflow shifts to the point with a larger flow rate. The axial velocity of the impeller inlet in Case 2 changes more smoothly along the Span compared with that in Case 1, which further indicates a more uniform inflow at the impeller inlet. The total entropy production (TEP) of each domain in Case 1 is always higher than that in Case 2, and the TEP of the whole domain in Case 1 increased by 18.68%, 30.50%, and 29.67% with flow rates of 0.8Q_des, 1.0Q_des, and 1.2Q_des, respectively, compared with that in Case 2. In the inlet passage, the larger TEPR regions in Case 1 are mainly located in the horn passage, which is far away from the inlet side, and are also distributed in the suction side of impeller blades and guide vanes. Therefore, this work may provide an optimal design reference for pumping stations in practical application.

A two-way pumping station is a specialized device that facilitates bidirectional water pumping and drainage. The pressure pulsation characteristics of two-way pumping stations have emerged as a prominent research focus in the field of hydraulic engineering. In this work, with the aim of systematically proposing optimization measures to ensure operational stability, a transient numerical simulation is conducted to elucidate the influence mechanism of the suspension height of the bell mouth (SHb) on the internal flow field and pressure pulsation of a two-way pumping station. High-precision experiments are performed to compare time-frequency domain characteristics under different SHb using a continuous wavelet transform (CWT). The findings indicate that an appropriate reduction in SHb effectively reduces unstable flow and pressure pulsation within the inlet conduit, consequently reducing the pressure pulsation of the impeller. With a reduction in SHb, the influx of low-velocity backflow into the bell mouth is prevented and the generation and propagation of suction vortices are suppressed. However, the reduction amplifies the flow impact between the mainstream flow and the bell mouth wall. The spatial distribution of the pressure pulsation is also examined, and it is found that a reduction in SHb increases the pressure pulsation intensity on the side facing the incoming flow and on the rear side, while the mainstream area tends to exhibit stability. In terms of time-frequency domain characteristics, a reasonable reduction in SHb leads to improved circumferential uniformity of the impeller inflow and the effective suppression of low-frequency disturbances.