An experimental investigation is presented regarding the unsteady pressure field within a high specific speed centrifugal pump impeller (ωs = 1.7) which operated in a double spiral volute. For this, twenty-five piezoresistive pressure transducers were mounted within a single blade passage and sampled in the rotating impeller frame with a telemetry system. The influence of varying volume flux on the pressure transducers was evaluated in terms of pressure fluctuation magnitudes and phase differences. The magnitude information reveals that the pressure fluctuations from the impeller-volute interaction grew as the volume flux became further removed from the best efficiency point and as the trailing edge of the impeller blade was approached. These fluctuations reached 35% of the pump head in deep part load. The upstream influence of the volute steady pressure field dominates the unsteady pressure field within the impeller at all off design load points. Acquired signal phase information permits the identification of the pressure field unsteadiness within the impeller passage as fundamentally synchronized simultaneously with the volute tongue passing frequency. Special emphasis was placed on the volume flux regime where the pump and impeller pressure discharge characteristic undergo hysteresis, as impeller inlet and outlet recirculation commence and cease. A synthesis of the rotating transducers was performed to obtain unsteady blade loading parameters. The value of the unsteady lift coefficient varies on the order of 200% for a single blade in part load operation (at 45% bep), an abrupt fluctuation occurring as the fore running blade suction side passes a volute tongue. The unsteady moment coefficient and center of pressure are also shown to vary significantly during the impeller-volute tongue interaction.

Hysteresis in a pump characteristic results from instability phenomena involving complex three dimensional flow with recirculation. The unsteady flow field on the top and bottom branches of a hysteresis loop in a high specific speed (ωs = 1.7) centrifugal pump characteristic was experimentally evaluated. A hypothesis for recirculation zones and prerotation as power dissipaters is proposed for explaining the discrepancy in the pressure and shaft power hysteresis. The experimental investigation was performed in both the rotating and stationary frame. In the rotating frame 25 miniature pressure transducers mounted in an impeller blade passage were sampled with a telemetry system. In the stationary frame a fast response probe was implemented. The changing impeller flow field manifested itself between the two branches of the hysteresis with increasing stochastic pressure fluctuations. Using this information the position, size, and strength of the impeller recirculation was quantitatively determined. Theoretically the rate of change of useful hydraulic power in the hysteresis regime during transient pump operation was found to be a function of throttling rate. Quasi-steady behavior existed for slow throttling, |dφ/dt| < 0.005 s−1. A second-order nonlinear dependence on the throttle rate was determined for the change of useful flow power during the commencement/cessation of the impeller recirculation.

The measured pump pressure discharge characteristic for a high specific speed radial pump (ωs = 1.7) reveals distinct discontinuities in part load operation. These pressure discontinuities occur at different threshold volume fluxes when increasing or decreasing the pump discharge and make up a hysteresis loop. The pump impeller characteristic was evaluated experimentally and numerically by taking the difference between the integrated impeller outlet and impeller inlet total pressure. The experimental and numerical characteristics agree well including the volume flux location and magnitude of the pressure discontinuities in the hysteresis loop. For volume fluxes within the hysteresis loop two stable well converged flows were calculated numerically. The numerical calculations were made on coarse and fine grids using commercially available software with and without the impeller clearance leakage flow. Further experimental and numerical comparisons are made at the impeller inlet/outlet with emphasis on the changing flow field in the hysteresis loop flow regime and its coupling to the onset of reverse flow zones. This combined application of numerical and experimental tools provides insight for the hysteresis flow field of a pump impeller characteristic.

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Details are presented on design investigations to advance the suction performance of inducers combined with centrifugal impellers for pumping liquid hydrocarbons such as liquefied natural gas (LNG). In particular minimizing the NPSHr3 is emphasized over the entire flow range. Design advances are made with the combined efforts of computational fluid dynamics, analytical methods, and test results. In particular the focus here is on inducer flow incidence and resulting blade loading by examining the NPSHr3 performance of the variable pitch and constant pitch helical style inducers for use over the full flow rate range taken as 35% to 130% of the pump BEP. Results indicate the combined centrifugal impeller with a variable pitch inducer tends to have lower NPSHr3 at BEP and below the pump BEP flow rate, but the constant pitch inducer can have superior performance near the pump maximum flow rate.