Effects of Volute Throat Enlargement and Fluid Viscosity on the Performance of an Over Hung Centrifugal Pump

抄録

In the current study, identifying regimes and behaviors of the various viscous fluids in a typical horizontal singlestage centrifugal pump and improving its performance by enhancing volute throat area have been surveyed numerically and experimentally. Indeed the initial pump had insufficient head at BEP (Best Efficient Point) in relevant applications. In order to solve this problem, the method of increasing the volute throat area on the prototype was used in steps and eventually the increased head values have been achieved. Then modified centrifugal pump, that has been constructed based on the modified control volume from numerical results, has been tested thoroughly. The maximum head and efficiency discrepancy between numerical and experimental results in BEP were 1.4 and 2.6% respectively. The effects of viscous fluids, from 1 cSt to 500 cSt, on the performance curves of centrifugal pump have been investigated as well and results showed that viscous fluids has significant effect on them. Indeed the highest head and efficiency in the same conditions at BEP has been obtained in viscosity 1 cst which was by 19.2% and 44% greater than the viscosity 500 cSt. It is also found that the highest viscous fluid had the highest energy consumption as the absorbed power of highest viscous fluid, 500 cSt, increased up to approximately 55% above the lowest viscous fluid, 1 cSt, values.