Investigation of Unsteady Performance Characteristics of a Submersible Axial-Flow Pump for Different IGV and Blade Pitch Angles

Author(s):  
Youn-Sung Kim ◽  
Hyeon-Seok Shim ◽  
Kwang-Yong Kim

Abstract This paper presents a study of the effects of blade pitch angle and inlet guide vane (IGV) angle on the performance of a submersible axial-flow pump. To analyze the interaction effects between the IGVs and the rotor blades, both steady and unsteady three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations with shear stress transport turbulence model were solved. Hexahedral meshes were used in the computational domain and a grid-dependency test was performed to obtain an optimal number of grid nodes. The performance curves obtained by numerical simulation showed good agreement with experimental data. The results show that the fluctuation of hydraulic efficiency and head coefficient increased significantly under overload conditions as the IGV setting angle increased. Additionally, both the steady and unsteady performance characteristics were shown to be quite dependent on the combination of IGV angle and blade pitch angle, because the relative velocity at leading edge played an important role in the performance under overload conditions.

Author(s):  
Youn-Sung Kim ◽  
Hyeon-Seok Shim ◽  
Kwang-Yong Kim

This study aims to evaluate effects of blade pitch and inlet guide vane (IGV) angle on the performance characteristics of a submersible axial-flow pump. According to the results of the previous study, the efficiency at the design and over-load conditions were significantly affected by the angle of IGV due to change in the incidence angle. To investigate the interactional effects of IGV and blade angle are analyzed using three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations with shear stress transport turbulence model. The hexahedral grids are used in the computational domain and a grid-dependency test is performed to obtain an optimal number of the grids. In this study, combinations of three different blade angles and two different IGV angles are tested. Adjusting angle of IGV increases the total pressure of the pump with a blade pitch increase, which can increase the efficiency of the pump in operating range.


Author(s):  
Youn-Sung Kim ◽  
Hyeon-Seok Shim ◽  
Kwang-Yong Kim

This study investigates the effects of inlet guide vane (IGV) and blade pitch angles on the steady and unsteady performance of a submersible axial-flow pump. To analyze the interaction between the IGVs and the rotor blades, both steady and unsteady three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations were used with shear stress transport turbulence closure. Hexahedral meshes were used in the computational domain. The numerical results for performance curves showed good agreement with experimental data. The results showed that the steady and unsteady performance characteristics were dependent on both the IGV and blade pitch angles. Adjusting these angles affected the total pressure rise and thus caused variation in the efficiency in overload conditions. But adjusting these angles affected the unsteady pressure fluctuations in partial-load conditions. Detailed flow analyses were performed to find the root-cause of these phenomena.


Author(s):  
Sang-Won Kim ◽  
Youn-Jea Kim

An axial-flow pump has a relatively high discharge flow rate and specific speed at a relatively low head and it consists of an inlet guide vane, impeller, and outlet guide vane. The interaction of the flow through the inlet guide vane, impeller, and outlet guide vane of the axial-flow pump has a significant effect on its performance. Of those components, the guide vanes especially can improve the head and efficiency of the pump by transforming the kinetic energy of the rotating flow, which has a tangential velocity component, into pressure energy. Accordingly, the geometric configurations of the guide vanes such as blade thickness and angle are crucial design factors for determining the performance of the axial-flow pump. As the reliability of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has been elevated together with the advance in computer technology, numerical analysis using CFD has recently become an alternative to empirical experiment due to its high reliability to measure the flow field. Thus, in this study, 1,200mm axial-flow pump having an inlet guide vane and impeller with 4 blades and an outlet guide vane with 6 blades was numerically investigated. Numerical study was conducted using the commercial CFD code, ANSYS CFX ver. 16.1, in order to elucidate the effect of the thickness and angle of the guide vanes on the performance of 1,200mm axial-flow pump. The stage condition, which averages the fluxes between interfaces and is accordingly appropriate for the evaluation of pump performance, was adopted as the interface condition between the guide vanes and the impeller. The rotational periodicity condition was used in order to enable a simplified geometry to be used since the guide vanes feature multiple identical regions. The shear stress transport (SST) k-ω model, predicting the turbulence within the flow in good agreement, was also employed in the CFD calculation. With regard to the numerical simulation results, the characteristics of the pressure distribution were discussed in detail. The pump performance, which will determine how well an axial-flow pump will work in terms of its efficiency and head, was also discussed in detail, leading to the conclusion on the optimal blade thickness and angle for the improvement of the performance. In addition, the total pressure loss coefficient was considered in order to investigate the loss within the flow paths depending on the thickness and angle variations. The results presented in this study may give guidelines to the numerical analysis of the axial-flow pump and the investigation of the performance for further optimal design of the axial-flow pump.


1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 153-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven M. Miner

A commercial CFD code is used to compute the flow field within the first stage impeller of a two stage axial flow pump. The code solves the 3-D Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes equations in a rotating cylindrical coordinate system using a standardk−εturbulence model. Stage design parameters are, rotational speed 870 rpm, flow coefficientφ=0.12, head coefficientψ=0.06, and specific speed 2.86 (8070 US). Results from the study include relative and absolute velocities, flow angles, and static and total pressures. Comparison is made to measured data available for the same impeller at two planes, one upstream of the impeller and the other downstream. The comparisons are for circumferentially averaged results and include axial and tangential velocities, impeller exit flow angle, static pressure, and total pressure. Results of this study show that the computational results closely match the shapes and magnitudes of the measured profiles, indicating that CFD can be used to accurately predict performance.


Author(s):  
Wei-Min Feng ◽  
Jing-Ye Pan ◽  
Zhi-Wei Guo ◽  
Qian Cheng

The effects of variable-inlet guide vanes on the performance of an axial flow pump considering tip clearance are investigated. The performance and the main flow field of the whole passage with five different angles of inlet guide vanes ( −10°, −5°, 0°, 5°, 10°) and with two tip clearance sizes (1‰ and 2‰) are presented. The results show that when the angle of inlet guide vane increases from negative values to positive values, the pump head reduces for two tip clearance sizes. This is mainly caused by the change of inlet velocity triangle of blade. Moreover, as tip clearance size increases from 1‰ to 2‰, both the pump head and efficiency decrease because of increasing of the strength of tip clearance leakage vortex and reverse flow.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 3053
Author(s):  
Youn-Sung Kim ◽  
Man-Woong Heo ◽  
Hyeon-Seok Shim ◽  
Bong-Soo Lee ◽  
Dong-Hwan Kim ◽  
...  

Submersible pumps are now in high demand due to the sporadic occurrence of recent torrential rains. The current study was carried out to investigate the hydraulic characteristics of a submersible axial-flow pump with a swept impeller and to optimize the impeller and diffuser shapes of the pump to enhance the hydraulic performance. Three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations were solved with the shear stress transport turbulence model. The governing equations were discretized using the finite volume method, and unstructured tetrahedral and hexahedral meshes were used in the grid system. The optimal grid system was selected through a grid dependency test. A performance test for the submersible axial-flow pump was carried out experimentally, and the results of the numerical analysis were validated against the experimental results. The hydraulic efficiency and the total head were used as objective functions. For the first optimization, a multi-objective optimization was carried out to simultaneously improve the objective functions through a hybrid multi-objective evolutionary algorithm coupled with a response surface approximation by varying the swept angle and pitch angle of the blades of the rotating impeller. The second multi-objective optimization was performed using two design variables, i.e., the inlet angle and the length of the diffuser vanes, to simultaneously increase the objective functions. Clustered optimum designs in the Pareto optimal solutions yielded significant increases in the objective function values as compared with the reference design.


1969 ◽  
Vol 12 (53) ◽  
pp. 1082-1090
Author(s):  
Taijiroo KASAI ◽  
Sigenori MATSUNAGA ◽  
Yukio KUNIKIYO ◽  
Haruo ISHIBASHI

Author(s):  
Javed A. Chattha ◽  
Mohammad S. Khan

Standard centrifugal pumps are manufactured in a large number of sizes in order to cover a wide range of heads and flow rates. Conventional turbines, however, are not mass produced since they are custom designed and manufactured. Therefore, pumps are available in the market at comparatively lower cost and shorter delivery periods. In this paper an experimental study is presented in which the use of pumps as turbine (PAT) is explored for micro-hydro power generation. The objective of the study is to explore cheap alternate sources of energy production in remote locations of Pakistan. Extensive research has been carried out by Williams [1] in the field of using pumps as turbines. Only centrifugal pumps were studied to explore their use as turbines in that work. Since then quite a bit of advancement in this sector of technology has taken place. However, to the best of our knowledge, axial flow pumps have never been tested as turbines. The site conditions for micro-hydro power station usually find axial flow pumps to be more appropriate compared cross flow and pelton turbines. A commercially available axial flow pump was selected and test rig was designed and constructed in order to determine the performance characteristics of using the pump as a turbine. The test bed has a provision of simulating various head and flow rate conditions and dynamometer to measure the power output in order to determine the performance of the turbine. The simulated head and flow rates were varied for various typical conditions. Some minor modifications in the basic pump unit were made to accomplish these tests. The experimental study resulted in generating data for which head was varied from 4 to 12 m and flow rate from 700 to 900 m3/hr. For these conditions power developed ranged from 5–20 kW with a maximum efficiency of 70% corresponding to a head of 6.8 m and a flow rate of 800 m3/hr. Pump affinity laws and the data collected in this experimental study were then used to select a Kaplan turbine. This information was then used to choose a commercially available pump for typical low head and high flow rate conditions in Pakistan to generate about 100 kW of electric power, when running in turbine mode. This paper discusses the design and construction of the test rig to carry out experiments for testing pumps as turbines. Details of experimental procedure and results to determine performance characteristics are also presented. Finally selection procedure of a pump for a specific head and flow condition are also discussed in this paper.


Author(s):  
Alexey N. Kochevsky ◽  
Stanislav N. Kozlov ◽  
Khin Maung Aye ◽  
Alexander Y. Schelyaev ◽  
Vladimir N. Konshin

The article describes numerical research of fluid flow inside an axial-flow pump that includes adjustable guide vanes, impeller and discharge channel. The guide vanes in the extreme position cut off the flow through the pump. The article presents the performance curves of the pump at different pitch angle of those guide vanes, as well as some corresponding flow patterns. Cavitation characteristics are also presented. The results were obtained using the CFD software tools CFX-BladeGenPlus, CFX-TASCflow and CFX-5. In the previous article, the authors have presented a comprehensive comparison of numerical results with available experimental results for a similar pump. As it was demonstrated, the performance curves of the pump depend strongly on the guide vanes pitch angle. Conclusions concerning these dependencies are drawn. A particular attention is paid for evaluation of performance of the pump with swirl flow downstream of it.


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