Research on the Matching Characteristics of the Impellers and Guide Vanes of Seawater Desalination Pumps with High Capacity and Pressure

This paper presents the matching characteristics of impellers and guide vanes of high capacity and pressure seawater desalination pumps by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The single-stage pump is numerically calculated, and its external characteristics are consistent with the test results of model pump. Taking this scheme as a prototype, the research is carried out from three aspects: (i) the impeller blade outlet width; (ii) the number of impeller and guide vane blades; and (iii) the area ratio of impeller outlet to guide vane inlet. The results indicate that the blade outlet width significantly affects the pump head and efficiency. Appropriately increasing the number of guide vane blades or changing the number of impeller blades can improve efficiency and expand the high-efficiency area. Additionally, increasing the throat area of the guide vane has the opposite effect on the large flow and small flow area of the pump. An optimized hydraulic model design scheme is obtained.

Investigation of Unsteady Pressure Pulsation in New Type Dishwasher Pump with Special Double Tongue Volute

Through numerical simulations, this work analyzes the unsteady pressure pulsation characteristics in new type of dishwasher pump with double tongue volute and single tongue volute, under volute static and rotation conditions. Likewise, the performance tests were also carried out to verify the numerical results. Multiple monitoring points were set at the various positions of new type dishwasher pump to collect the pressure pulsation signals, and the relevant frequency signals were obtained via Fast Fourier Transform, to analyze the influence of volute tongue and its passive speed on the pump performance. The results reveal that when the double tongue volute is stationary, the pressure pulsation amplitudes increase from the impeller inlet to the impeller outlet. Under the influence of shedding vortex, the pressure pulsation in the lateral region of tongue becomes disorganized, and the main frequency of pressure pulsation changes from blade frequency to shaft frequency. In addition, compared with the static volute, double tongue volute can effectively guide the water flow out of the tongue during the rotation process, thus ensuring good periodicity for pressure pulsation in the tongue region. Accordingly, a volute reference scheme with passive rotation speed is proposed in this study, which can effectively improve the pressure pulsation at tongue position, and provides a new idea for rotor-stator interference to guide the innovation of dishwasher.

Laboratory Modeling of an Axial Flow Micro Hydraulic Turbine

This article is devoted to detailed experimental studies of the flow behind the impeller of an air model of a propeller-type microhydroturbine in a wide range of operating parameters. The measurements of two component distributions of averaged velocities and pulsations for conditions from part load to strong overload are conducted. It is shown that the flow at the impeller outlet becomes swirled when the hydraulic turbine operating mode shifts from the optimum one. The character of the behavior of the integral swirl number, which determines the state of the swirled flow, is revealed. Information about the flow peculiarities can be used when adjusting the hydraulic unit mode to optimal conditions and developing recommendations to expand the hydraulic turbine operation control range with preservation of high efficiency. This stage will significantly save time at the stage of equipment design for specific field conditions of water resource.

Pressure Fluctuation Characteristics of High-Speed Centrifugal Pump with Enlarged Flow Design

The pressure fluctuations of high-speed centrifugal pumps are the hotspot in pump research. Pressure fluctuations is differ for different structural designs and flow structures. High-speed centrifugal pumps are usually designed to increase efficiency with an enlarged flow design at a low specific speed, which changes the structure of the pump. In order to analyze the pressure fluctuations of a high-speed centrifugal pump with an enlarged flow design, the pressure was measured, and the flow field of the pump was simulated with different flow rates. Through analysis, we found that pressure fluctuations varied periodically and was consistent with the blade frequency. The pressure fluctuations at the guide vane and the interference region were also closely related to the vortices at the impeller outlet, which changed differently at different flow rates. The results showed that the high-speed centrifugal pump with an enlarged design had better performance at a large flow rate. The results in this paper can provide reference for the design of a pump that should be designed with the enlarged flow method.

Numerical investigation on the compressor for gas-entraining diffuser EGR

Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) is an effective way to reduce nitrogen oxide (NO x) emissions, and the EGR application increases the engine backpressure to some extent. In this paper, a new EGR method named gas-entraining diffuser EGR was proposed to reduce pumping loss. It introduces the exhaust gas into the compressor diffuser inlet where the static pressure is the lowest without blades fouled by exhaust gas. As a result, lower pressure at the turbine upstream can achieve EGR. Then, a newly designed induced structure not only introduces exhaust gas into the compressor diffuser but also reduces the energy loss caused by EGR application. Furthermore, the performance of compressor with different induced angles of the induced structure was investigated using simulation method. Results showed that the compressor’s adiabatic efficiency was the best when the induced angle was 20°. Regarding the induced angle of 20°, the adiabatic efficiency drop of compressor was in the range of 0.8%–12%. Approximately 10% of the adiabatic efficiency drop was caused by the induced structure, the other was mainly from the flow loss and mixing loss in diffuser system. The induced structure mainly affected the static pressure difference between induced structure inlet and impeller outlet ([Formula: see text]). When the impeller mass flow was 0.23 kg/s, [Formula: see text] was 11.21, 13.95, 15.59, 17.18 kPa respectively with corresponding induced angles of 20°, 30°, 40°, 50°. The primary energy loss leading to the adiabatic efficiency drop of compressor with induced structure occurred in diffuser system. It was caused by the mixing process of induced gas and impeller exit gas, and the enhanced effect from the shroud side’s impeller jet-wake and volute tongue.

Numerical Simulation of Internal Flow Field in Turbo-Expander

As everyone pays more attention to energy consumption, it is very meaningful to use natural gas pressure energy for power generation and turbo-expander is an important part of power generation devices. In this paper, the turbo-expander model for pressure energy generation is meshed and numerically simulated based on fluent, and the pressure distribution and velocity distribution in the turbo-expander are obtained. The volute profile is Archimedes spiral, and the impeller is modeled by cfturbo. The main conclusions are as follows: when the number of grids is more than 2.2 million, the simulation results are less affected by the number of grids. The internal basin of the turbo-expander has obvious pressure gradient and velocity gradient. Due to the negative pressure at the elbow of the inlet pipe of the centrifugal effect, the existence of the blade leads to the change of the flow direction. Different watershed planes have different pressure and velocity distributions. The velocity and pressure of the watershed plane near the impeller outlet and the volute outlet are often smaller, but the flow vortex is more intense.

Experimental Study on Effects of Adjustable Vaned Diffusers on Impeller Backside Cavity of Centrifugal Compressor in CAES

The impeller backside cavity (IBC) is a unique structure of centrifugal compressor in compressed air energy storage (CAES) systems, which affects the aerodynamic performance of centrifugal compressor, and the angle change of the downstream coupled adjustable vaned diffusers (AVDs) will affect the flow field inside the cavity and compressor performance. This paper relies on the closed test facility of the high-power intercooling compressor to measure static pressure and static temperature at different radii on the static wall of the IBC. The coupling relationship between the IBC and compressor under variable operating conditions is analyzed, and the influence of AVDs on the internal flow in IBC is studied. The results show that static pressure and static temperature rise along the direction of increasing radius, but static temperature drops near the coupling between the impeller outlet and the cavity inlet. Under AVDs’ design angle, static pressure and static temperature at each point, static pressure loss and static temperature loss in the direction of decreasing radius all increase as the flow decreases. Under variable AVDs’ angles, static pressure and static temperature will change differently, and respective loss will also be different.

Differences in Formation Mechanism of Static Pressure Circumferential Distribution of Centrifugal Compressor Under Different Operating Conditions

The casing-wall static pressure of the centrifugal compressor behaves the double-peak distribution in the circumference at small flow rates but the single-peak distribution at large flow rates. A previous study shows that the double-peak distribution is induced by the redistribution of impeller outlet flow rates. In this paper, by using the similar simplified method of directly imposing pressure boundary to the diffuser outlet, the original reason for the formation process difference of pressure distribution in the circumference at different operating conditions is further investigated. The results show that at large flow rates, under the combined action of the specific downstream pressure distribution and the flow performance of the compressor itself, alternating low/high velocity airflow zones similar to those at small flow rates cannot be established in the diffuser when the impeller outlet flow rates are redistributed. Therefore, the static pressure can only express the single-peak distribution in the circumference. In fact, whether the static pressure exhibits the double-peak or single-peak distribution in the circumference depends on whether the impeller outlet flow mutation can destroy the original flow balance. When the flow mutation is dominant, the double-peak distribution is created, whereas when the original flow balance is prevailing, the single-peak distribution is formed.

Pressure Fluctuation Reduction of a Centrifugal Pump by Blade Trailing Edge Modification

The pressure fluctuation inside centrifugal pumps is one of the main causes of hydro-induced vibration, especially at the blade-passing frequency and its harmonics. This paper investigates the feature of blade-passing frequency excitation in a low-specific-speed centrifugal pump in the perspective of local Euler head distribution based on CFD analysis. Meanwhile, the relation between local Euler head distribution and pressure fluctuation amplitude is observed and used to explain the mechanism of intensive pressure fluctuation. The impeller blade with ordinary trailing edge profile, which is the prototype impeller in this study, usually induces wake shedding near the impeller outlet, making the energy distribution less uniform. Because of this, the method of reducing pressure fluctuation by means of improving Euler head distribution uniformity by modifying the impeller blade trailing edge profile is proposed. The impeller blade trailing edges are trimmed in different scales, which are marked as model A, B, and C. As a result of trailing edge trimming, the impeller outlet angles at the pressure side of the prototype of model A, B, and C are 21, 18, 15, and 12 degrees, respectively. The differences in Euler head distribution and pressure fluctuation between the model impellers at nominal flow rate are investigated and analyzed. Experimental verification is also conducted to validate the CFD results. The results show that the blade trailing edge profiling on the pressure side can help reduce pressure fluctuation. The uniformity of Euler head circumferential distribution, which is directly related to the intensity of pressure fluctuation, is improved because the impeller blade outlet angle on the pressure side decreases and thus the velocity components are adjusted when the blade trailing edge profile is modified. The results of the investigation demonstrate that blade trailing edge profiling can be used in the vibration reduction of low specific impellers and in the engineering design of centrifugal pumps.