Improvement of Pump Performance and Suction Performance of a Very Low Specific Speed Centrifugal Pump

There are high expectations of improving the performance of a centrifugal pump in the range of very low specific speed which has been developed recently for the use instead of a conventional positive displacement pump. However, even though elaborated studies has been done for the pump intensively, the pump performance has not increased so much. Also, it is difficult to find detailed information from published literatures for suction performance of the very low specific speed centrifugal pump. Therefore, this study is aimed to improve the pump performance more and to make clear suction performance of the very low specific speed centrifugal pump. Recircular flow stopper is installed on the pump casing wall at the region of impeller outlet to improve the pump performance and J-Groove is also installed at the inlet of the pump casing for the purpose of suppressing occurrence of cavitation as well as improving pump performance. The result suggests that the simultaneous improvement of pump performance and suction performance of the very low specific speed centrifugal pump is possible by adopting optimum configuration of the recirculation flow stopper and J-Groove.