Cavitation has bothered the hydraulic machinery for centuries, especially in pumps. It is essential to establish a solid way to predict the unsteady cavitation evolution with considerable accuracy. A novel cavitation model was proposed, considering the rotating motion characteristic of centrifugal pump. Comparisons were made with three other cavitation models and validated by experiments. Considerable agreements can be noticed between simulations and tests. All cavitation models employed have similar performance on predicting the pump head drop curve with proper empirical coefficients, and also the unsteady cavitation evolution was well solved. The proposed rotating corrected-based cavitation model (rotating based Zwart-Gerber-Belamri (RZGB)) obtained identical triangle cavity structure with the experiment visualizations, while the others also got triangle structure but with opposite direction. The maximum flow velocity in the impeller passage appears near the shroud, contributing to the typical triangle cavity structure. A preprocessed method for instant rotating images was carried out for evaluating the erosion risk area in centrifugal pump, based on the standard deviation of gray level. The results imply that the unsteady rear part of the attached cavity is vulnerable to be damaged, where the re-entrant flow was noticed. This work presented a suitable cavitation model and reliable numerical simulation approach for predicting cavitating flows in centrifugal pump.

In order to improve internal unsteady flow in a double-blade centrifugal pump (DBCP), this study used major geometric parameters of the original design as the initial values, heads at three conditions (i.e., 80% design flow rate, 100% design flow rate, and 120% design flow rate) as the constraints conditions, and the maximum of weighted average efficiency at the three conditions as the objective function. An adaptive simulated annealing algorithm was selected to solve the energy performance calculation model and the supertransitive approximation method was applied to fix optimal weight factors of individual objectives. On the basis of hydraulic performance optimization, three-condition automatic computational fluid dynamics (CFD) optimization of impeller meridional plane for the DBCP was realized by means of Isight software integrated Pro/E, Gambit, and Fluent software. The shroud arc radii R₀ and R₁, shroud angle T₁, hub arc radius R₂, and hub angle T₂ on the meridional plane were selected as the design variables and the maximum of weighted average hydraulic efficiency at the three conditions was chosen as the objective function. Performance characteristic test and particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements of internal flow in the DBCP were conducted. Performance characteristic test results show that the weighted average efficiency of the impeller after the three-condition optimization has increased by 1.46% than that of original design. PIV measurements results show that vortex or recirculation phenomena in the impeller are distinctly improved under the three conditions.

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to predict the erosion rate of the components of centrifugal pump under certain operating condition to identify the maximum erosion area and to discuss the factors affecting them. This helps to optimize design and estimate service life.Design/methodology/approach: In the paper, the Eulerian–Lagrangian approach method coupled with the erosion model to investigate the mixed sand characteristics on erosion characteristics of centrifugal pump flow-through wall. The hydraulic performance and wear characteristics experiment of the pump is used to verify the accuracy of the numerical simulation.Findings: The blade erosion area mainly occurs near the blade inlet and the trailing edge of the pressure surface, the main erosion area of the impeller back shroud is near the outlet of the flow passage and the main erosion area of the volute is near the tongue and the I section. With the change of the average diameter and density of sand particles, the average erosion rate on different flow-through walls is positively correlated with the average mass concentration to a certain extent. However, for different sand shape factors, there is little correlation between the average erosion rate and the average mass concentration. In addition, compared with other erosion areas, the increase of average sand particle diameter and density has the greatest impact on the total erosion rate of blade pressure surface, while the shape of sand particles has a greater impact on the total erosion rate of each flow-through wall of centrifugal pump.Originality/value: In this work, according to the characteristics of the mixed distribution of different sand diameters in the Yellow River Basin, the erosion characteristics of centrifugal pumps used in the Yellow River Basin are studied. The numerical calculation method for predicting the wall erosion of centrifugal pump is established and compared with the experimental results. The results can provide reference for optimizing design and increasing service life.

In this paper, the transient behavior of a super low specific speed centrifugal pump, with the specific speed of 25, during startup period under shut-off condition and rapid depressurization process at the pump inlet is experimentally studied. The pump performance and vibration are tested under given transient operating conditions. The experimental results show that the motor speed linearly increases when the pump started up with different accelerated speeds under shut-off condition, and reaches its highest value at the end of the startup. Meanwhile, an obvious impact head at the end of the acceleration process is found, and then declines as the startup becomes steady. The main fluctuation frequencies of the vibration acceleration in the X, Y, and Z directions at the outlet are shaft frequency or integer times of shaft frequency during the startup period with shut-off condition. The vibration acceleration amplitude had the largest component in the X direction, while the smallest component was in the Z direction. As the acceleration of startup increased, the vibration acceleration amplitude also increased with the main frequency. Compared with the instantaneous depressurization process and the stable non-cavitation condition, there is a broadband vibration ranging from 4000 Hz to 6000 Hz. The abrupt reduction of the inlet pressure of the super low specific speed centrifugal pump will accelerate the cavitation. The results provide references for further study of the transient characteristics of the super low specific speed centrifugal pump.