CFD analysis of effect of mass flow rate and impeller speed on the performance of a centrifugal pump

  Shishir Kumar,  Ashish Muchrikar

In the present study a three dimensional centrifugal pump is analyzed by CFD analysis by using ANSYS FLUENT. Three different value of mass flow rate is taken for inlet condition as 1.0345, 0.667 and 0.3846 kg/s and at each mass flow rate three different rotational speed of impeller is taken as 2400, 2600 and 2800rpm respectively. All the cases are simulated for a fixed blade number of 7. The study was aimed to analyze different performance parameters and cavitation for varying mass flow rate and change in rotation speed of impeller for a fixed blade number. The result obtained is validated with existing work and found in good agreement with them. The maximum efficiency in all cases occurs at 1.0345 kg/s mass flow rate and 2800 rpm After analyzing the water vapor volume fraction contour , it is found out that at fixed inlet and outlet pressure the probability of occurrence of cavitation is less as we decrease the mass flow rate. Also at fixed mass flow rate increasing the rpm increase the water vapor volume fraction which means chances of cavitation is more on increasing the rpm. No cavitation is seen at 0.3846 kg/s mass flow rate for all rpm while a slight water vapor volume fraction is observed at 0.667 kg/s at 2800rpm which increases at 1.0345 kg/s as we increase the rpm, representing the worst condition for the blade erosion and serve breakdown of the operation of centrifugal pump in terms of cavitation. Also pressure coefficient and head coefficient is discussed in the study for varying mass flow rate and varying impeller speed

Keywords- computational fluid dynamics, centrifugal pump, impeller, cavitation, efficiency, head coefficient, pressure coefficient

Unique Identification Number - IJEDR2003032
Page Number(s) - 197-205
Pubished in - Volume 8 | Issue 3 | August 2020
DOI (Digital Object Identifier) -   
Publisher - IJEDR (ISSN - 2321-9939)

  Shishir Kumar,  Ashish Muchrikar,   "CFD analysis of effect of mass flow rate and impeller speed on the performance of a centrifugal pump", International Journal of Engineering Development and Research (IJEDR), ISSN:2321-9939, Volume.8, Issue 3, pp.197-205, August 2020, Available at :http://www.ijedr.org/papers/IJEDR2003032.pdf