scholarly journals Study on tip leakage vortex in an axial flow pump based on modified shear stress transport k-ω turbulence model

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 1551-1555 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desheng Zhang ◽  
Dazhi Pan ◽  
Weidong Shi ◽  
Suqing Wu ◽  
Peipei Shao

The tip leakage vortex structure and trajectory in an axial flow pump were investigated numerically and experimentally based on the modified shear stress transport k-? turbulence model. Numerical results were compared with the experimental leakage vortex trajectories, and a good agreement was presented. The detailed trajectories of tip leakage vortex show that the starting point of tip leakage vortex occurs near the leading edge at small flow rate, and it moves from leading edge to about 30% chord length at design flow rate. At larger flow rate condition, the starting point of tip leakage vortex shifts to the middle of chord.

Author(s):  
Desheng Zhang ◽  
Weidong Shi ◽  
Suqing Wu ◽  
Dazhi Pan ◽  
Peipei Shao ◽  
...  

In this paper, the tip leakage vortex (TLV) structures in an axial flow pump were investigated by numerical and experimental methods. Based on the comparisons of different blade tip clearance size (i.e., 0.5 mm, 1mm and 1.5mm) and different flow rate conditions, TLV trajectories were obtained by Swirling Strength method, and simulated by modified SST k-ω turbulence model with refined high-quality structured grids. A high-speed photography test was carried out to capture the tip leakage vortex cavitation in an axial flow pump with transparent casing. Numerical results were compared with the experimental leakage vortex trajectories, and a good agreement is presented. The detailed trajectories show that the start point of tip leakage vortex appears near the leading edge at small flow rate, and it moves from trailing edge to about 30% chord span at rated flow rate. At the larger flow rate condition, the starting point of TLV shifts to the middle of chord, and the direction of TLV moves parallel to the blade hydrofoil. As the increasing of the tip size, the start point of TLV trajectories moves to the central of chord and the minimum pressure in vortex core is gradually reduced.


Author(s):  
Xi Shen ◽  
Desheng Zhang ◽  
Bin Xu ◽  
Changliang Ye ◽  
Weidong Shi

The interaction of tip leakage flow and main flow in an axial flow pump can induce the tip leakage vortex, which causes the unstable flow and complex cavitation structures. In the present research, the modified shear stress transport k–ω turbulence model was utilized to predict the cavitating flow of the model pump under design and off-design conditions. Validations were carried out using high-speed photography techniques. Results show that the simulation results about cavitation performance based on the modified shear stress transport k–ω turbulence model agree well with the experimental results. Cavitation inception occurs more possible at part-load conditions, and with the increase of the flow rate, the starting point of tip leakage vortex gradually moves to the back edge of the blade chord. Both the sheet cavitation and the triangular cavitation cloud that formed in the blade tip grow in size and intensity gradually with the decrease of cavitation number. Distributions of the cavity area fraction and axial velocity show that the tip leakage vortex cavitation locates at the radial coefficient r* = 0.95–1.0 with peaks at about r* = 0.97, while the sheet cavitation is found at r* = 0.5–0.9 on the suction side (SS). The cavitation structures lead to a significant decrease in the axial velocity, especially in the tip region of the blade.


Author(s):  
Simin Shen ◽  
Zhongdong Qian ◽  
Bin Ji ◽  
Ramesh K Agarwal

The effects of varying tip clearance widths on tip flows dynamics and main flows characteristics for an axial-flow pump are studied employing computational fluid dynamics method. An analysis is presented for the distributions of turbulent kinetic energy, mean axial velocity, and mean vorticity magnitude at the specific flow rate of 0.7 Q BEP , focusing on flow patterns in the tip region with different tip clearance widths and associated flows. From the simulation results we find that the flow structure of tip vortex and its transportation strongly depend on the tip clearance width, especially for the extension of tip leakage vortex, appearance of induced vortex and the area of tip separation vortex. For a small clearance of 0.15 mm at 0.7 Q BEP, there is no tip separation vortex at the tip. When tip clearance width becomes larger, a tip separation vortex attaches more on the surface of blade tip as well as vortex intensity of tip flows increases. For tip clearances of 0.9 and 1.2 mm, there is a small part of induced vortex near the blade leading edge. Meanwhile, no induced vortex can be captured for tip clearances of 0.15 and 0.45 mm. The relative angle between the blade chord and tip leakage vortex trajectory reduces gradually when tip clearance width increases from 0.45 to 1.2 mm. Additionally, the radial position of tip leakage vortex core moves inwards as tip clearance width increases. Furthermore, a larger tip clearance width has greater effects on the main-stream characteristics especially near the shroud, which is due to more energy being exchanged between tip flows and main flows. At the flow rate 0.7 Q BEP, both the efficiency and head of the pump reduce with an increasing tip clearance because of greater energy loss.


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.


2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 035504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Shi ◽  
Desheng Zhang ◽  
Yongxin Jin ◽  
Weidong Shi ◽  
B P M (Bart) van Esch

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 61-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desheng Zhang ◽  
Weidong Shi ◽  
B.P.M. (Bart) van Esch ◽  
Lei Shi ◽  
Michel Dubuisson

Author(s):  
Zhaodan Fei ◽  
Hui Xu ◽  
Rui Zhang ◽  
Yuan Zheng ◽  
Tong Mu ◽  
...  

The blade angle has a great effect on hydraulic performance and internal flow field for axial-flow pumps. This research investigated the effect of the blade angle on hydraulic performance and tip leakage vortex (TLV) of a slanted axial-flow pump. The hydraulic performance and the TLV are compared with different setting angles. The dimensionless turbulence kinetic energy (TKE) is used to investigate the TLV. A novel variable fv is utilized to analyze the relation among the TLV, strain tensor and vorticity tensor. The proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) method is used to analyze TLV structure. The results show that with the increase of the blade angle, the pump head is getting larger, the flow rate of the best efficiency moves to be larger, and both the primary TLV (P-TLV) and the secondary TLV (S-TLV) are getting stronger. The P-TLV often exists in the outer edge of TKE distribution and S-TLVs often exist in the largest value area of TKE. This phenomenon is more evident with blade angle increasing. Through POD method, it shows that the first six modes contain more than 90% of TKE. The reason why the TKE value near the region of S-TLV is high is that the tip leakage flow is a kind of jet-like flow with high kinetic energy. The main structure of the P-TLV is shown in modes 4−6, resulting in a reflux zone but not with the highest TKE.


2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 659-667 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desheng Zhang ◽  
Lei Shi ◽  
Ruijie Zhao ◽  
Weidong Shi ◽  
Qiang Pan ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 775
Author(s):  
Hu Zhang ◽  
Jun Wang ◽  
Desheng Zhang ◽  
Weidong Shi ◽  
Jianbo Zang

To understand the effect of cavitation on the tip leakage vortex (TLV), turbulent cavitating flows were numerically investigated using the shear-stress transport (SST) k–ω turbulence model and the Zwart–Gerber–Belamri cavitation model. In this work, two computations were performed—one without cavitation and the other with cavitation—by changing the inlet pressure of the pump. The results showed that cavitation had little effect on the pressure difference between the blade surfaces for a certain cavitation number. Instead, it changed the clearance flow and TLV vortex structure. Cavitation caused the TLV core trajectory to be farther from the suction surface and closer to the endwall upstream of the blade. Cavitation also changed the vortex strength distribution, making the vortex more dispersed. The vortex flow velocity and turbulent kinetic energy were lower, and the pressure pulsation was more intense in the cavitating case. The vorticity transport equation was used to further analyze the influence of cavitation on the evolution of vortices. Cavitation could change the vortex stretching term and delay the vortex bending term. In addition, the vortex dilation term was drastically changed at the vapor–liquid interface.


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