Transient internal characteristic study of a centrifugal pump during startup process

The transient process of a centrifugal pump existed in a variety of occasions. There were a lot of researches in the external characteristic in startup process and stopping process, but internal characteristics were less observed and studied. Study of the internal flow field had significant meanings. The performance of a pump could be evaluated and improved by revealing the flow field. In the other hand, the prediction of external characteristic was based on the correct analysis of the internal flow. In this paper, theoretical method and numerical simulation were used to study the internal characteristic of a centrifugal pump. The theoretical study showed that the relative flow in an impeller was composed of homogeneous flow and axial vortex flow. The vortex intensity was mainly determined by angular velocity of impeller, flow channel width and blade curvature. In order to get the internal flow field and observe the evolution of transient internal flow in the impeller, Computational Fluid Dynamics(CFD) were used to study the three-dimensional unsteady incompressible viscous flows in a centrifugal pump during starting period. The Dynamic Mesh (DM) method with non-conformal grid boundaries was applied to get the external characteristic and internal flow field. The simulate model included three pumps with different blade numbers and the same blade curvature. The relative velocity vector showed that there was a big axial vortex in impeller channel. At the beginning, the vortex was raised in the pressure side of the impeller outlet and with time went on, it shifted to the middle flow channel of the impeller and the vortex intensity increased. When the speed and flow rate reached a definite value, the influence of the axial vortex began to get smaller. The vortex developed faster when the flow channel got narrower. Due to the evolution of axial vortex, the slip factor during starting period was smaller than that in quasi-steady condition. As a result, transient head was lower than quasi-steady head in startup process.