CFD Investigation of the Influence of Volute Geometrical Variations on Hydrodynamic Characteristics of Circulator Pump

作     者：WU Denghao YUAN Shouqi REN Yun MU Jiegang YANG Youdong LIU Jian 

作者机构：Zhijiang CollegeZhejiang University of Technology College of Mechanical EngineeringZhejiang University of Technology Research Center of Fluid Machinery Engineering and TechnologyJiangsu University 

出 版 物：《Chinese Journal of Mechanical Engineering》 (中国机械工程学报（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2016年第29卷第2期

页      面：315-324页

核心收录：

学科分类：080704[工学-流体机械及工程] 08[工学] 0807[工学-动力工程及工程热物理] 

基　　金：Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No.51239005) Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant Nos.LQ15E090004,LQ15E090005) Project of Zhejiang Education,China(Grant No.Y201432222) 

主　　题：CFD circulator pump hydrodynamic characteristics volute variations 

摘      要：Improper design of volute geometry can be the main cause that leads to unsteady pressure pulsation and radial force in pumps. Therefore, it is important to understand the influence of volute geometrical parameters on hydrodynamic characteristics of pump and the mechanism. However, the existing studies are limited to investigate the influence of only one or two volute geometrical parameters each time, and a systematic study of the influence of the combinations of different volute geometrical parameters on the pump＇s hydrodynamic characteristics is missing. In this paper, a study on the understanding of the influence of volute geometrical variations on hydrodynamic characteristics of a high speed circulator pump by using computational fluid dynamics（CFD） technology is presented. Five main volute geometrical parameters D3, A8, a0, j0 and Rt are selected and 25 different volute configurations are generated by using design of experiments（DOE） method. The 3D unsteady flow numerical simulations, which are based on the SST k-w turbulence model and sliding mesh technique provided by CFX, are executed on the 25 different volute configurations. The hydraulic performance, pressure pulsation and unsteady radial force inside the pump at design condition are obtained and analyzed. It has been found that volute geometrical parameters D3 and A8 are major influence factors on hydrodynamic characteristics of the pump, while a0, j0 and Rt are minor influence factors. The minimum contribution from both D3 and A8 is 58% on head, and maximum contribution from both D3 and A8 is 90% on pressure pulsation. Regarding the pressure pulsation intensity, two peaks can be found. One is in the tongue area and the other is in the diffusor area. The contributions are around 60% from tongue and 25% from diffusor, respectively. The amplitude of pressure pulsation has a quadratic polynomial functional relationship with respect to D3/D2 and A8/A（10）, and fluctuating level of radial force has a quadratic