International Research Journal of Innovations in Engineering and Technology - IRJIET International Open Access, Monthly, Peer Reviewed, Reputed Journal ISSN (online): 2581-3048

Impact Factor (2025): 6.9

DOI Prefix: 10.47001/IRJIET

Three-Dimensional CFD Simulations of Transient Cavitation in a Centrifugal Pump

Abstract

Liquid pumps can be found in many industrial and domestic applications. In several operating circumstances where the inlet pressure and pump flow varies to a point where the pump performance crashes due to cavitation. On long term effect, the cavitation can cause material loss to the impeller blade and eventually damages the pump impeller. This study present meanline analysis to construct pump impeller and volute. The three-dimensional pump impeller model is then generated using Bezier polynomial that fits the inlet and outlet main geometrical parameters obtained from the meanline and create the hub, shroud and blade profiles. The meanline design is also used to determine the design flow and operating. Three-dimensional, CFD analysis is then conducted to study the evolution of the cavitation in the impeller of the centrifugal pump under variable inlet pressure. The inlet total pressure is allowed to decrease with time from atmospheric value to a point where the cavitation is fully developed in the pump impeller until the pump head is dropped near zero. The Rayleigh-Plesset homogenous cavitation model coupled with incompressible Navier-Stokes solver successfully reproduces the blade suction and pressure sides, pressure recovery in the volute extension, homogenous distribution of the pressure across the interface between moving impeller and fixed volute. The CFD results uncover three distinct phases of the cavitation evolution in the pump undergoing transient drop in the inlet pressure; phase (1) remarks the start of the cavitation where no impact is seen on the developed head, phase (2) indicates the rapid grow and propagation of the cavitation along the suction side from leading to trailing edge of the impeller blade, and finally phase (3) where the cavitation blocks the space between the blades and pump head drops down to zero. A generalized behavior is seen for the flow structure as the flow is streamed in phases one. Vortical (circulation) flow is developed in phase two and back to streamed flow during phase three by virtue of displacing more flow due to dramatic increase in the specific volume. 

Country : Iraq

1 Hani M. S. Salman2 Amir S. Dawood3 Younis M. Najim

  1. Department of Electronic Engineering, College of Electronics Engineering, Ninevah University, 42002, Iraq
  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Mosul, 42002, Iraq
  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Mosul, 42002, Iraq

IRJIET, Volume 6, Issue 6, June 2022 pp. 118-125

doi.org/10.47001/IRJIET/2022.606015

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