Numerical Investigation of Flow Field on a Centrifugal Slurry Pump

Abstract

The flow field in centrifugal slurry pumps is influenced by fluid rotation and curvature, which are highly turbulent and unsteady. Due to separation and recirculation of flow, it became very complex. In order to study these changes in the flow field lots of work has been done previously, both experimentally and numerically. With new CFD software’s the analysis has become easier and helped in improving the efficiency of the pumps. In the present study numerical investigation of flow field inside the centrifugal slurry pump is done. For this purpose a design code has been written. Thereafter, output of the program has been used for modeling of impeller of pump using Ansys-CFX, CFD software. Also study of variation of different parameters, such as pressure and velocity, in the flow field of centrifugal pump impeller in single and two phase flow conditions is done. The effect of flow rate on the flow field is also investigated. The pressure variation from inlet to outlet of the impeller along the streamwise location is also studied. Performance characteristics of the pump are also developed. It is observed that head of the pump decreases with increasing flow rate and the concentration of the sand in the fluid. Input power required at the shaft also increases as concentration increases. But there is not much of change in the efficiency of pump with changing concentration.