Effects of Blade Pressure Side Modification on Unsteady Pressure Pulsation and Flow Structures in a Centrifugal Pump

In this paper, the effects of modifying the blade pressure side (PS) on unsteady pressure pulsation and flow structures in a low specific speed centrifugal pump are carried out by experimental and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Seven monitor points are arranged in the circumferential direction of the impeller outlet to capture the pressure signals in the volute at flow rate of 0.2-1.6Q(d). Results show that the blade PS modification introduced here can significantly alleviate the amplitude of pressure pulsation at blade passing frequency (f(BPF)) in all concerned operation conditions. To study the effects of blade modification on the internal flow field, the volute domain is replaced by an even outlet region for CFD analysis. The shear stress transfer (SST) turbulence model is adopted for steady-state numerical simulation while the delayed detached eddy simulation (DDES) based on the SST approach is adopted for transient simulation. Results show that local unsteady velocity fluctuation is the dominant reason for pressure pulsation in the volute. After blade PS modification, the relative velocity distribution at the impeller outlet is more uniform and the intensity of shedding vortex at the blade trailing edge (TE) decreases significantly. The change of internal flow structure improves the uniformity of circumferential velocity distribution the downstream of the impeller outlet, which leads to the decrease of pressure fluctuation amplitude in the volute. Meanwhile, the local Euler head (LEH) distribution at the impeller outlet and the blade loading of PS are presented and compared. It can be concluded that the reduction of pressure pulsation attributes to a more uniform energy distribution at the impeller outlet which is achieved by actively unloading the PS of the modified blades.