Hydraulic optimization of impeller blade in reactor coolant pump base on Kriging model

To improve efficiency and head of the reactor coolant pump (RCP), an optimization approach is proposed based on Kriging model and genetic algorithm. 16 design cases containing three main parameters of blade, which are inlet angle β ₁, wrap angle ϕ, outlet blade angle β ₂, are designed by using the design of experiment(DOE) with Lation Hypercube. The efficiency and head are calculated by steady numerical simulation. The max efficiency and head under the design point 1.0Q _d are selected as the objective functions. Approximation models between the object and the parameters are built using Kriging model. The genetic algorithm is applied to optimize the approximation models to obtain the best combination of parameters. The results show that efficiency η has up to 51.54% at design flow rate. Comparing with prototype, the efficiency was increased by 1.02 percentage point, therefore the optimized RCP will save about 0.5×10⁶kW·h energy a year. The optimization method can provide an effective reference to the improvement of pump's performance. (paper)