Numerical simulation of hydrodynamic cavitation in centrifugal pump

Abstract

The diffusion of computational fluid dynamics to analysis fluid flow is established thoroughly in pump manufacturing industries. It increases the flexibility in analyzing the various pump parameters under design and off-design condition. The key steps involved are the design calculation, computer aided model, Auto mesh using Turbo-gird tool of ANSYS©, computational fluid dynamics Analysis. This enable the pump engineer to analysis the given pump before actually fabricating the pump which reduce the wastage and downtime in correcting the underperforming turbine. Moreover, the performance of the pump under cavitating condition is analyzed numerically, it shows that the computational fluid dynamics tool is versatile in analyzing the performance of the pump at no time with high accuracy and help to expand the research and development in the pump industry. The experimental data of the similar pump is used as the key to validate the computational fluid dynamics code to improve the reliability of the computational fluid dynamics prediction. It is observed from the numerical simulation that the suction surface of the impeller led to separation and re-circulation at off-design condition (1.2 times of discharge) which in-turn influence the onset of cavitation at the leading edge of the blade.