Research on Effects of Blade Thickness on the Low-specific-speed Centrifugal Pump Performance
This research work was supported by the Innovation Fund of Postgraduate, Xihua University under Grant No. Ycjj2014171), National Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 51279172), and the Scientific Research Fund of SiChuan Provincial Education Department under Grant No. 13204671).
With the other geometric parameters of a centrifugal pump fixed, five kinds of impellers with different blade thickness were designed under different conditions of the impeller blade thickness. Based on standard k-ε equation and SIMPLE algorithm, numerical simulation of pumps was carried out by using Fluent under six different operational conditions, respectively. The relationship between the blade thickness and the hydraulic performance of pump was analyzed from the external characteristics and internal flow field. The results have showed that when the blade thickness increased in a certain range of blade thickness, the best efficiency point of pump moved to the small flow direction and a little bigger efficiency was gained. Additionally, internal turbulence energy losses of pump were increasing gradually under the designed operational condition.
