25-10-2014, 09:48 AM
Abstracts: Centrifugal pump is a most common pump used in industries, agriculture and domestic applications. The design of a centrifugal pump impeller and diffuser demands a detailed understanding of the internal flow during design and off design operating conditions. The complexity of the flow in any turbo machine is due to the three dimensional blade geometry, turbulence, secondary flows, unsteadiness etc. However, their design and performance prediction process is still a difficult task, mainly due to the great number of free geometric parameters, the effect of which cannot be directly evaluated. The significant cost and time of the trial-and-error process by constructing and testing physical prototypes reduces the profit margins of the pump manufacturers. For this reason CFD analysis is currently being used in the design and construction stage of various pump types. The experimental way of pump test can give the actual value of head developed, power experimental results. From the CFD analysis software and advanced post processing tools the complex flow inside the impeller can be analyzed. The complex flow characteristics like inlet pre-swirl, flow separation and outlet recirculation cannot be visualized by the experimental way of pump test. But in the case of CFD analysis the above flow characters can be visualized clearly. Moreover design modification can be done easily and thus CFD analysis reduces the product development time and cost.