Hydraulic design and performance analysis of low specific speed centrifugal pump

Since low specific speed centrifugal pump with long narrow flow divergent channels has positive slope of head-capacity characteristic curve, low flow rate instability and high flow rate power overload, special events about its hydraulic design are still under study. This paper demonstrates a method for hydraulic design of low specific speed centrifugal pump complex impeller (with splitter blades) which is based on 2D flow theory. In this method, obtain the basic geometry parameters by empirical correlation, adjust impeller profile according to given flow cross section area distribution and wrapping angles distribution, relate the position of splitter blades to slip factor. Based on this method, low specific speed centrifugal pump impellers have been designed using the same design parameters (Head, Capacity, Rotation Speed, etc) with different factors. And 3D turbulent flow fields in design pumps have been solved by using RANS equations with RNG k-epsilon turbulence model. The investigation to the effects of different splitter blades on velocity distributions and pressure distributions along the flow channels and hydraulic performance of centrifugal pumps are presented. The result shows that properly placed splitter blades by choosing suitable design factors will improve the flow in the pump and enhance the hydraulic performance of it.