CFD and surrogates-based inducer optimization

Abstract

Due to the nature of cavitation numerical analyses, computational optimization of a pump with respect to the cavitation properties is extremely demanding. In this paper it is shown how a combination of Transient Blade Row (TBR) method and some simplifications can be used for making the optimization process more efficient and thus possible on current generation of hardware. The aim of the paper is not the theory of hydraulic design. Instead, the practical aspects of numerical optimization are shown. This is done on an example of a radial pump and a combination of ANSYS CFX, ANSYS software tools and custom scripts is used. First, a comparison of TBR and fully-transient simulation is made. Based on the results, the TBR method is chosen and a parametric model assembled. Design of Experiment (DOE) table is computed and the results are used for sensitivity analysis. As the last step, the final design is created and computed as fully-transient. In conclusion, the results are discussed.