Prediction of Abrasive and Impact Wear Due to Multi-Shaped Particles in a Centrifugal Pump via CFD-DEM Coupling Method

Abstract

Since solid particles suspended in the fluid can cause wear in centrifugal pumps, intensive attention has been focused on the numerical prediction for the wear of flow parts in centrifugal pumps. However, most numerical studies have focused on only one wear model and a sphere particle model. The impact of particle shape on the wear of flow parts in centrifugal pumps is under-studied, particularly considering abrasive and impact wear simultaneously. In this work, the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)-Discrete Element Method (DEM) coupling method with an abrasive and impact wear prediction model was adopted to study the wear characteristics of a centrifugal pump. Moreover, four regular polyhedron particles and a sphere particle with the same equivalent diameter but different sphericity were mainly analyzed. The results demonstrate that more particles move closer to the blade pressure side in the impeller passage, and particles tend to cluster in specific areas within the volute as sphericity increases. The volute suffers the principal wear erosion no matter what the shapes of particles and wear model are. Both the impact and abrasive wear within the impeller occur primarily on the blade leading edge. The pump’s overall impact wear rate decreases first and then increases with particle sphericity rising, while the pump’s overall abrasive wear rate grows steadily.