A Numerical Investigation of the Effect of Increasing Blade Numbers on Cavitation and Performance of Centrifugal Pumps at Constant Parameters

Abstract

In the present paper, a numerical study has been investigated by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to analyze pressure, head, head coefficient, pressure coefficient, input power, and volume fraction  of cavitation  at  three  cases  of simulation  in  which  each  one  has  constant parameters; however, with modifying number of blades which is changed from five to sixteen.

The constant parameters are rotating speed, volume flow rate, mass flow rate, outlet diameter, suction specific speed Nss, Reynolds number and NPSHr. These parameters have been fixed to have the same conditions for each case. The shear stress transport (SST) turbulence model has been used to inspect a steady state incompressible flow through centrifugal pump numerically. The simulation has done by using ANSYS®, Vista CPDTM Release 15.0. The results are plotted and discussed to describe and find a relation among cavitation, pump behavior, and variation of blade numbers at constant conditions. The results show a strong relation among increasing blade numbers, centrifugal pump performance and reducing pump cavitation.