Digital Analysis of Common Turbulence Patterns in Centrifugal Pump Flow Simulation Based on COMSOL Multiphysics Software

Abstract

The present paper tackles the convergence and performance of three numerical turbulence models in the flow simulation. The benchmark analysis was performed using the COMSOL Multiphysics code, and the turbulence on a centrifugal water pump was generated numerically using the k−ε,k−ω, and k−ω SST models. However, the geometry was conducted on SolidWorks due to its complexity. First, the flow modeling was driven by solving the stationary Navier-Stokes equations. Then, the effects of the tested models, on the numerical CFD simulation, were examined. The analyzed results demonstrated that the best calculation precision was obtained using the k−ω model, whereas the lowest was provided by the k−ω SST model. A remarkable pumping performance was also recorded.