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Design and development of centrifugal pump

impeller for performance enhancement

Technical Report · November 2015

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.4023.4329

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 Design and development of centrifugal pump impeller for performance enhancement

M.Hazeri Ismail

Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP), 26600 Pekan, Pahang,
Malaysia, Phone: +0199947294
Email: hazeri.ismail@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

There is an ever increasing use of centrifugal pumps in applications which require the pumping of
liquids containing solids, and liquids other than water. The application in industry nowadays such as
oil and gas with the increasing use of centrifugal pumps for applications of this type, it becomes
important to be able to predict pump characteristics and create efficient design. Design changes will
be suggested in an attempt to improve the performance of the impeller used in the pump. This project
consists of the detailed study of a model of the centrifugal pump and also consists of the detailed to
identify, observe and determine the pattern of velocity profile and pressure distribution by using CFD
simulation program. This project will definitely provide much helpful information while contributing
to the knowledge about the design and characteristics of centrifugal pumps.

Keywords: impeller; centrifugal pump design; pump performance; CFD Analysis; Simulation ANSYS

INTRODUCTION

A pump is a mechanical device for moving a fluid from a lower to a higher location, or from a lower
to a higher pressure area. Mechanical energy will be given to the pump and it later converted into
hydraulic energy of fluid. Pumps produce negative pressure at the pressure at the inlet so that the
atmospheric pressure pushes the fluid towards the pump[1, 2]. The fluid coming into the pump is
pushed towards the outlet mechanically where positive pressure is generated. Pumps are classified in
number of the ways based on their purpose, specifications, design, environment etc.[3]. The fluid
enters the pump impeller along or near to the rotating axis and is accelerated by the impeller, flowing
radially outward or axially into a diffuser or volute chamber, from where it exits into the downstream
piping system. Centrifugal pumps are typically used for large discharge through smaller heads[1, 4].

Figure 1: Liquid flow path inside a centrifugal pump

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis is being increasingly applied in the design of
centrifugal pumps. With the aid of the CFD approach, the complex internal flows in water pump
impellers, which are not fully understood, can be well predicted, to speed up the pump design
procedure[5, 6]. Thus, CFD is any important tool for pump designers. The use of CFD tools in turbo
machinery industry is quite common today. Recent advances in computing power, together with
powerful graphics and interactive 3D manipulation of models have made the process of creating a
CFD model and analysing results much less labour intensive, reducing time and, cost. As a result of
these factors, Computational Fluid Dynamics is now an established industrial design tool, helping to
reduce design time scales and improve processes throughout the engineering world [7].

EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

Centrifugal pump design

The design of centrifugal pump is focus to Impeller Design. The detailed procedure of impeller design
can be found in different literature; in this paper for the design of centrifugal pump, the design
parameters and specification has be given in table 1.

Table 1: Design speciation

No parameters model
1 Specific speed 973 rpm
2 Power input to the pump 15.21 hp
3 Shaft diameter 17.69 mm
4 Hub diameter 25 mm
5 Outer diameter of impeller 0.2 m
6 Velocity of fluid at the impeller inlet 4.103 m/s
7 Eye diameter of impeller 76 mm
8 Inner diameter of impeller 74 mm
9 Inlet blade angle 20.3 degree
10 Impeller outlet area 5943.5 mm2
11 Impeller width at inlet 9.905 mm
12 Blade angle at outlet 24 degree
13 Number of blades 6

Experimental Procedure

Three-dimensional model of an impeller was first created in Solid works 2014 software and exported
into STEP files. The STEP files were then imported into fluid flow simulation, the mesh generator[5,
8]. The fluid volume was split into a rotating fluid volume, a scroll volume, an inlet cone volume, and
an inlet/outlet duct volume. The inlet and outlet ducts were intentionally set to simulate the actual
measuring situation and to provide better boundary conditions for simulations [1, 9]. The flow was
assumed fully developed when leaving the inlet and outlet ducts. The impeller wheel volume was
defined as a rotating reference frame with constant speed, and other blocks were defined in a
stationary frame. This setup is referred to as a frozen rotor model[10].
 Figure 2: impeller 3D solid works

Solution initialization

Initialization in Ansys is done by give initial guess values to solve the governing equation so that the
flow field variables can be solved by iteration toward the solution. The default automatic initialization
for the velocity and static pressure is used to provide a start point to the solution[7].

Analysis setup

Design points for a parametric study can be specified using the required duty of the pump in the setup
steps:
Input Material: Material is also assigned to the parts of the pump as: Casing and Impeller (Aluminium
alloy), Hydraulic Region (Water), Rotating part (Rotating region)
Boundary Conditions: Boundary conditions are applied to the inlet and outlet of the pump i.e.
Velocity of fluid at the impeller inlet 4.103 m/s, and Specific speed 973 rpm.

MATHEMATICAL MODELLING

Performance parameter

Efficiency, head, capacity, power, net positive suction head, and specific speed are parameters that
have describe a centrifugal pump performance. These parameters will be discussed in the following
sections. The head (H) is the net work done on a unit weight of water by the pump[11]. It is given by

H= d - s (1)

The power imparted to the water by the pump is called water power. Equation below is used to
compute water power (WP)
WP = ( (2)

Pump efficiency (Ep) is the per cent of power input to the pump shaft (the brake power) that is
transferred to the water. Ep can be computed using Equation below

Ep = 100( (3)
 Specific speed (Ns) is an index to pump performance derived using dimensional analysis. It
consolidates a pumps speed, design capacity, and head into one term. Ns is computed from

Ns = (4)

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

CFD RESULTS

After analysis has been implemented the following results are obtained. The results are taken only
when the convergence is obtained for the solution. As the solution iterated 1000 times and the pump
impeller completed a full turn. Following results are taken from different axis and cross-sections.

Figure 3: Experiment result (a) Efficiency diagram (b) pressure diagram

Figure 3: Experiment result (a) velocity diagram (b) flow diagram

CONCLUSIONS

Pump impeller is designed for the given specification and numerical analysis is carried out in fluid
flow simulation package. Contour plots are also obtained for the distribution of static pressure,
velocity and wall shear stress. From that the design and analysis methods lead to completely very
good flow field predictions. This makes the methods useful for general performance prediction. In this
way, the design can be optimized to give reduced energy consumption, lower head loss, prolonged
component life and better flexibility of the system, before the prototype is even built.
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