Cavitation as a form of unsteady flow within centrifugal pumps can cause the reduced performance of pumps, disordered internal flow regimes, and flow loss. The present criterion used for determining the occurrence of cavitation is a 3% head drop. However, in most cases, pump cavitation already occurs with less than a 1%–2% head drop due to significant changes in the internal flow status. To examine changing patterns in internal flow characteristics as the degree of cavitation deepens in the early stage of cavitation in centrifugal pumps when the head curve does not show significant fluctuation, this paper focuses on a low specific speed centrifugal pump to analyze distributions of total internal pressure, speed, bubble volume, vortex structure, and entropy generation across different degrees of cavitation and obtain internal flow characteristics and flow loss patterns of pumps, with an aim of providing preferences for anti-cavitation hydraulic design of centrifugal pumps.

We have employed the large eddy simulation (LES) approach to investigate the cavitation noise characteristics of an unsteady cavitating flow around a NACA66 (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) hydrofoil by employing an Eulerian-Lagrangian based multiscale cavitation model. A volume of fluid (VOF) method simulates the large cavity, whereas a Lagrangian discrete bubble model (DBM) tracks the small bubbles. Meanwhile, noise is determined using the Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings equation (FW-H). Eulerian-Lagrangian analysis has shown that, in comparison to VOF, it is more effective in revealing microscopic characteristics of unsteady cavitating flows, including microscale bubbles, that are unresolvable around the cloud cavity, and their impact on the flow field. It is also evident that its evolution of cavitation features on the hydrofoil is more consistent with the experimental observations. The frequency of the maximum sound pressure level corresponds to the frequency of the main cavity shedding for the noise characteristics. Using the Eulerian-Lagrangian method to predict the noise signal, results show that the cavitation noise, generated by discrete bubbles due to their collapse, is mainly composed of high-frequency signals. In addition, the frequency of cavitation noise induced by discrete microbubbles is around 10 kHz. A typical characteristic of cavitation noise, including two intense pulses during the collapsing of the cloud cavity, is described, as well as the mechanisms that underlie these phenomena. The findings of this work provide for a fundamental understanding of cavitation and serve as a valuable reference for the design and intensification of hydrodynamic cavitation reactors.

Process valves are responsible for regulating and controlling the rate and direction of flow in pipeline systems. The V-port ball valve is one kind of process valve with a regulating performance influenced by V-angle. In this article, a DN50 V-port ball valve is taken as the research object. This work therefore aims to investigate the effect of and relationship between the V-angle on valve performance and internal flow properties via experiments and numerical simulations. Results indicate that an increase in either V-angle or valve opening causes a large-pressure fluctuation near the valve outlet, thus leading to a long pressure-stable distance. Meanwhile, the flow coefficient increases exponentially with valve opening, and the value of the exponent remains at 2.5 for different V-angles. Furthermore, the stable position of internal energy loss along the downstream pipe is well-matched with the stable position of external pressure fluctuation. This inspires a new method for controlling the pressure stability downstream from the valve. These results may facilitate improvements in the design and optimization of the process valve, thus benefiting the development of fluid transport techniques in energy industries.

The high-speed rotation of impellers leads to strong rotor–stator interaction, which mainly causes the pressure pulsation of centrifugal pumps. An impeller with a bionic sinusoidal tubercle trailing edge (STTE) can reduce the intensity of the rotor–stator interaction and thus reduce the pressure pulsation of the centrifugal pump. In this study, three profiles of STTE were designed based on the pectoral fin structure of humpback whales of which the influence on the pressure pulsation of centrifugal pumps was studied via experiment and numerical simulation. Results show that a reasonable design of STTE can effectively eliminate the high-frequency pressure pulsation in the rotor–stator interaction region of the centrifugal pump. The use of STTE2 and STTE3 profiles affect the amplitude reduction of pressure pulsation at the blade passing frequency (f_BPF). Compared with the impeller without the STTE profile, the amplitudes of pressure pulsation with STTE2 and STTE3 profiles are decreased by 47.10% and 44.20% at the pump discharge, while the decrease, at the volute throat is 30.36% and 25.97%, respectively. Detailed flow structures inside the pump show that the STTE profile can inhibit the vortex generation at the blade trailing edge, and the local high-intensity pressure pulsation can be reasonably avoided. This study helps improve the pressure pulsation characteristic of centrifugal pumps and their operation stability.

Axial flow pumps possess a unique structure where there must be clearances between the impeller and the piping wall, usually not exceeding 0.1% of the impeller diameter. Despite the small size of the clearance, the internal micro-vortex structures have a non-negligible impact on the main flow field of the impeller. Under the action of the pressure difference between the suction and pressure surfaces of blades, some fluids form high-energy jets in the tip clearance area, known as tip leakage vortices (TLVs). TLV interacts with the flow of the main flow field, exerting a significant impact on the internal flow state, energy loss, and hydraulic performance of the pump. To identify the influence of TLVs on the internal flow field and energy loss of axial flow pumps, this work uses a modified partially averaged Navier–Stokes (PANS) model to perform full flow field numerical calculations for a certain axial flow pump and conducts a comparative analysis of the internal flow field energy dissipation, unsteady vortex structures, energy loss, and other characteristics under three different tip clearances: 0.2 mm (0.05%D), 0.6 mm (0.15%D), and 1.0 mm (0.25%D) based on the energy transport theory. The results indicate that at optimal operating conditions, the internal energy distribution of the fluid in each flow passage is uniform, and the energy loss is primarily caused by axial backflow in the tip area; under critical rotating stall conditions, clearance size affects the distribution state of enstrophy in the guide vane flow passage, leading to average enstrophy being highest at the rim area and the most uneven distribution of enstrophy, inducing larger energy loss in the impeller; during deep stall conditions, the unevenness of internal energy distribution is stronger than that under critical stall conditions, but the overall energy loss within the impeller flow area is lower than that under critical stall conditions, while energy unevenness is mitigated as the tip clearance size increases.