An analysis on the flow characteristics of bi-directional axial-flow pump under reverse operation

Author(s):  
Pengfei Ma ◽  
Jun Wang

When the conventional bent guide vanes are applied to the bi-directional axial-flow pump, its performance declines considerably under reverse operation. Regarding a bi-directional axial-flow pump with high specific speed as the object of study, the variation of both hydraulic performance and internal flow field under reverse operation are analyzed in this paper. The results indicate that both the head and efficiency of the pump will drop greatly and the optimum operating point lean to the lower flow rate when it operates in the reverse direction, mainly due to the prewhirl caused by the guide vanes; the shedding vortex is formed after flow separation occurred near the trailing edge of blade, and its scale keeps increasing in the diffusing pipe during its motion until it collapses in the straight pipe, which is the major causes of the big flow loss and significant decline of the performance under reverse operation.

Author(s):  
Chao Liu ◽  
Fan Yang ◽  
Yan Jin ◽  
Hua Yang

Three-dimensional flow-fields in a high-efficient axial flow pump system were simulated by CFD to further study the internal flow characteristics. The internal flow patterns of the pump system were obtained at large, small and optimum operating conditions. The highest efficiency of pump system measured and calculated are 82.57% and 81% respectively at blade angle 0°. For the suction passage, the axial velocity distribution uniformity reach 97.51%, and the hydraulic loss is 0.039m, the pipe efficiency calculated is 98.5% at the optimum operating conditions. The maximum velocity is 1.429 m/s in the range of operating conditions, which meet the requirement of National standard. The performances predicted were compared with measurement results. It was found that the calculated results agree well with the measured results. The overall flow pattern of the pump system is uniform and smooth, and the hydraulic loss is very small which gives the excellent hydraulic performances of pump system.


2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (10) ◽  
pp. 4683-4695 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kan Kan ◽  
Yuan Zheng ◽  
Yujie Chen ◽  
Zhanshan Xie ◽  
Guang Yang ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Honggeng Zhu ◽  
Rentian Zhang ◽  
Bin Xi ◽  
Dapeng Hu

Axial-flow pumps are widely used in many fields where low pumping head and large flow rate are required such as irrigation and drainage, flood control, bio-environmental protection and inter-basin water diversion. Conventional axial-flow pump diffuser is designed with post fixed guide vanes to eliminate circulation, diffuse water and decrease flow velocity while converting dynamic energy to pressure energy. Under designed flow rate the inlet setting angle of the fixed guide vanes is designed to be equal to the outlet flow angle of the impeller blades which is regarded to be the best operating condition. Under off-design conditions the outlet flow angle of the impeller blades does not match the inlet setting angle of guide vanes any more. As a result hydraulic losses are increased, flow separation appeared and vortex generated inside the diffuser, the operation conditions of pump is deteriorated, bringing in bad cavitation characteristics, more energy consumption and lower pumping efficiency. The proposal of Axial-flow pumps with adjustable guide vanes are put forward in this paper, in which the inlet setting angle of guide vanes can be adjusted to coordinate with the change of flow rate and impeller blade setting angle and guarantee the outlet flow angle of impeller blades matching the inlet setting angle of guide vanes. The three-dimensional time-averaged N-S equations, closed by the standard κ–ε turbulence model, are adopted to simulate the internal flow fields of axial-flow pumps with fixed and adjustable guide vanes, and their performances are predicted. The internal flow mechanism of an axial-flow pump with adjustable guide vanes is investigated, and computational fluid dynamics is adopted to simulate and analyze the internal flow fields. Computation results indicate that the value of the highest pumping efficiency is slight changed while the vane setting angle is adjusted when the inlet setting angles of blades are fixed and the setting angles of guide vanes are regulated. Under off-design conditions the flow conditions inside the diffuser of axial-flow pump with adjustable guide vanes can be improved, the hydraulic loss reduced and the pumping efficiency can be raised effectively.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (17) ◽  
pp. 5245
Author(s):  
Fan Yang ◽  
Zhongbin Li ◽  
Yao Yuan ◽  
Chao Liu ◽  
Yiqi Zhang ◽  
...  

The deflection flow of inlet passage seriously affects the performance of axial flow pump devices, and reduces the operation efficiency and stability of pumping station systems. In this paper, the influence of different deflection angles on the internal flow characteristics and outlet pulsation characteristics of the inlet passage of the vertical axial flow pump are studied. Based on the Reynolds time-averaged N-S equation of the three-dimensional incompressible fluid and the standard k-ε turbulence model, the model axial flow pump device was numerically simulated. Under optimal working conditions (Qbep = 31.04 L/s), the internal flow field of the axial flow pump was analyzed to study the change law of the axial flow pump performance under different deflection angles. Under the flow conditions of 0.6 Qbep, 1.0 Qbep and 1.2 Qbep, the pulsation characteristics of the outlet of inlet passage in axial flow pump at different deflection angles were analyzed. The result shows that with the increase of the deflection angle, the flow pattern of the inlet passage becomes turbulent, forming vortices of different sizes, the hydraulic loss of the inlet passage increases continuously, and the uniformity of the outlet flow velocity of the inlet passage increases first and then decreases. The time-domain waveform of outlet of the inlet passage at the pressure pulsation monitoring point has obvious periodicity, and the dominant frequency of the monitoring point is four times the rotation frequency, which corresponds to the number of impeller blades. It shows that the numerical calculation is in good agreement with the experimental results, which proves the reliability and validity of the numerical simulation calculation.


2016 ◽  
Vol 99 ◽  
pp. 1146-1152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhongdong Qian ◽  
Fan Wang ◽  
Zhiwei Guo ◽  
Jie Lu

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.


Processes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 1653
Author(s):  
Nengqi Kan ◽  
Zongku Liu ◽  
Guangtai Shi ◽  
Xiaobing Liu

To reveal the effect of tip clearance on the flow behaviors and pressurization performance of a helico-axial flow pump, the standard k-ε turbulence model is employed to simulate the flow characteristics in the self-developed helico-axial flow pump. The pressure, streamlines and turbulent kinetic energy in a helico-axial flow pump are analyzed. Results show that the tip leakage flow (TLF) forms a tip-separation vortex (TSV) when it enters the tip clearance and forms a tip-leakage vortex (TLV) when it leaves the tip clearance. As the blade tip clearance increases, the TLV moves along the blade from the leading edge (LE) to trailing edge (TE). At the same time, the entrainment between the TLV and the main flow deteriorates the flow pattern in the pump and causes great hydraulic loss. In addition, the existence of tip clearance also increases the possibility of TLV cavitation and has a great effect on the pressurization performance of the helico-axial flow pump. The research results provide the theoretical basis for the structural optimization design of the helico-axial flow pump.


Author(s):  
Takaharu Tanaka

There is a correlation between the efficiency of the pump to the head produced. On the axial flow pump, whose efficiency characteristic is favorable, the pressure head gradient between the impeller inlet and the outlet sections, at an equivalent flow rate, may become larger than that for the less favorable axial flow pump. This fundamental interrelation may be held in the flow passage regardless to the flow rate whichever they are operated at design or off design flow rate. There may be a direct correlation between the efficiency of an axial flow pump and the ratio of the discharge valve cross section divided by the pipeline cross section. The smaller this ratio is the better the pressure head gradient is for the same flow rates. This ratio may be useful to estimate relative grade of heads, pressure head gradients, internal flow conditions, and efficiency characteristics among axial flow pumps.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 168781402097490
Author(s):  
Fenghui Han ◽  
Zhe Wang ◽  
Yijun Mao ◽  
Jiajian Tan ◽  
Wenhua Li

Inlet chambers (IC) are the typical upstream component of centrifugal compressors, and inlet guide vanes in the IC have a great impact on its internal flow and aerodynamic loss, which will significantly influence the performance of the downstream compressor stages. In this paper, an experimental study was carried out on the flow characteristics inside a radial IC of an industrial centrifugal compressor, including five testing sections and 968 measuring points for two schemes with and without guide vanes. Detailed distributions of flow parameters on each section were obtained as well as the overall performance of the radial IC, and the causes of the flow loss inside the IC and the non-uniformity of flow parameters at the outlet section were investigated. Besides, numerical simulations were performed to further analyze the flow characteristics inside the radial IC. The experimental and numerical results indicate that, in the scheme without guide vanes, sudden expansions in the spiral channel and flow separations in the annular convergence channel are the major sources of flow loss and distortions generated in the radial IC; while in the scheme with guide vanes, the flow impacts, separations and wakes caused by the inappropriate design of guide vanes are the main reasons for the flow loss of the IC itself and the uneven flow distributions at the IC outlet.


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