Effect of Blade Thickening Law on the Internal Flow Field and Hydraulic Performance of Double Suction Pumps for Yellow River Pumping

Abstract

Abstract The thickness of the blades is a fundamental parameter of the impeller and has a substantial impact on the performance of the pump. With the other geometric parameters of a centrifugal pump fixed, six kinds of impellers with different blade thickness were designed. Numerical simulations of the pumps were performed with Fluent under six different operating conditions based on the RNG k-epsilon equation and the SIMPLE algorithm. The hydraulic performance of the pump and its external characteristics were analysed based on the internal flow field to understand the relationship between blade thickness and performance. The results have showed that the hydraulic performance of the pump increases with the backward movement of the maximum thickness of the blade; Under the same sand concentration, the efficiency increases slightly with the increase of blade thickness within a certain range;With the increase of blade thickness, the turbulent kinetic energy loss of the pump under design operating conditions increases continuously; The thickening rules of schemes A1 and B can improve the hydraulic performance of the pump and the transport capacity of the sediment laden two-phase flow. That is, on the premise of meeting the structural strength of the blades, selecting a reasonable blade thickness can ensure that the double suction pump has good hydraulic performance.