A pump is one of the most important machines in the processes and flow systems. The operation of multistage centrifugal pumps could generate pressure fluctuations and instabilities that may be detrimental to the performance and integrity of the pump. In this paper, a numerical study of the influence of pressure fluctuations and unsteady flow patterns was undertaken in the pump flow channel of three configurations with different diffuser vane numbers. It was found that the amplitude of pressure fluctuation in the diffuser was increased gradually with the increase in number of diffuser vanes. The lower number of diffuser vanes was beneficial to obtain a weaker pressure fluctuation intensity. With the static pressure gradually increasing, the effects of impeller blade passing frequency attenuated gradually, and the effect of diffuser vanes was increased gradually.

Turbulence modeling plays an important role in the accurate prediction of turbulent fluid motion in computational fluid dynamics simulations using the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations. A new one-equation Wray–Agarwal (WA) turbulence model has recently been developed by the present authors to improve the prediction of nonequilibrium turbulent flows with large separation and curvature. In this paper, the WA turbulence model is employed to simulate the internal turbulent flow characteristics in a U-bend, and the computed results are compared with experimental data. The results obtained from four other commonly used turbulence models, viz., the one-equation Spalart–Allmaras, two-equation standard k-ε, renormalization group k-ε, and shear stress transport k-ω models, are also compared. Detailed experimental data are obtained using magnetic resonance velocimetry. The results computed with the five different turbulence models show that the WA turbulence model gives the highest accuracy in predicting the complex three-dimensional turbulent characteristics of flow with large curvature in a U-bend.

The slurry pump is one of the most important pieces of equipment in mineral transportation and separation systems, and it has complex two-phase flow characteristics and wear mechanisms. By employing numerical and experimental methods, the solid–liquid two-phase flow characteristics and wear patterns were investigated in this study. A two-way coupling discrete phase model (DPM) method was used to predict the flow pattern and the wear location and shows good agreement with the experimental observations. The pump performance characteristics of numerical results under pure water conditions were consistent with the experimental results. The effects of particle parameters and operating conditions on the internal flow field and wear were compared and discussed. The results show that the wear degree increased with the increase in volume flow rate and solid volume fraction. With the increase in particle size, the wear range at the impeller inlet became significantly smaller, but the wear degree became obviously larger. This study provides a basis for reducing the wear and improving the hydraulic performance of slurry pumps.

The centrifugal pump is one of the most widely used types of power machinery in the field of ship and ocean engineering, and the shape of the impeller blade trailing edge has an important influence on their performance. To reveal the mechanism of the effect of different trailing edges on external performance, the internal flow of 16 types of impeller blade trailing edges of a centrifugal pump, consisting of Bezier trailing edges, rounding on the pressure side, cutting on the suction side, and the original trailing edge is studied by numerical simulation. The reverse flow, shaft power, and energy loss distribution in the impeller and diffuser along the streamwise direction are analyzed by calculating them on each micro control body sliced from the fluid domain. The entropy production theory and Ω-vortex identification method are used to display the magnitude and location of energy loss and the vortex structure. Finally, a static structural analysis of the impeller with different trailing edges is performed. The results show that different impeller trailing edges can clearly affect the efficiency of the pump, i.e., the thinner the trailing edge, the higher the efficiency, with the thickest model reducing efficiency by 5.71% and the thinnest model increasing efficiency by 0.59% compared to the original one. Changing the shape of the impeller trailing edge has a great influence on the reverse flow, shaft power, and energy loss near the impeller trailing edge and diffuser inlet but has little influence on the leading part of the impeller. The distribution of local entropy production rate, energy loss, and reverse flow along the streamwise direction shows similar rules, with a local maximum near the leading edge of the impeller due to the impact effect, and a global maximum near the impeller trailing edge resulting from strong flow separation and high vortex strength due to the jet-wake flow. Thinning the impeller trailing edge and smoothing its connection with the blade can reduce the vortex strength and entropy production near the impeller trailing edge and diffuser inlet, improve the flow pattern, and reduce energy loss, thus improving the pump efficiency. In all models, the maximum equivalent stress is less than 6.5 MPa and the maximum total deformation is less than 0.065mm. The results are helpful for a deeper understanding of the complex flow mechanism of the centrifugal pump with different blade trailing edges.