Research of liquid-solid two phase flow in centrifugal pump with crystallization phenomenon

Abstract

Particle Image Velocimetry combined with developed image processing method is adopted to study the liquid-solid two phase flow in the centrifugal pump impeller with crystallization phenomenon. The tracer particle is used to follow the liquid phase, which has the diameter between 8 to 12μm. The crystal particle precipitates from the sodium sulfate solution does change the wavelength of the laser, and which has great laser scattering characteristics . The diameter of the crystal particle is larger than 20μm. Through calculating the diameter of the particles in the image, the tracer particle and the crystal particle can be distinguished. By analyzing the experimental result, the following conclusion has been obtained. During the delay period, there is not any crystal particle and the pump performance has not been changed. As the crystallization process begins, the crystal nuclei appears from the supersaturation solution and grows larger with temperature decreasing, which has the tendency of moving towards the pressure side. The characteristics of liquid-solid two phase flow with crystallization phenomenon in the pump are obtained according to analysis of experimental results, and some guiding advices are presented to mitigate the crystallization phenomenon in pump impeller.