Capability for handling entrained gas is an important design consideration for centrifugal pumps used in petroleum, chemistry, nuclear applications. An experimental evaluation on their two phase performance is presented for two centrifugal pumps working under air-water mixture fluid conditions. The geometries of the two pumps are designed for the same flow rate and shut off head coefficient with the same impeller rotational speed. Overal pump performance and unsteady pressure pulsation information are obtained at different rotational speeds combined with various inlet air void fractions (α 0 ) up to pump stop condition. As seen from the test results, pump 2 is able to deliver up to 10% two-phase mixtures before pump shut-off, whereas pump 1 is limited to 8%. In order to understand the physics of this flow phenomenon, a full three-dimensional unsteady Reynolds Average Navier-Stokes (3D-URANS) calculation using the Euler-Euler inhomogeneous method are carried out to study the two phase flow characteristics of the model pump after corresponding experimental verification. The internal flow characteristics inside the impeller and volute are physically described using the obtained air distribution, velocity streamline, vortex pattern and pressure pulsation results under different flow rates and inlet void fractions. Pump performances would deteriorate during pumping two-phase mixture fluid compared with single flow conditions due to the phase separating effect. Some physical explanation about performance improvements on handing maximum acceptable inlet two phase void fractions capability of centrifugal pumps are given.Energies 2020, 13, 65 2 of 25 of the flow pattern. The pump performance degrades as the α 0 increase and generates undesired pulsation problems, endangering the operation stability and reliability of the system [4,5]. Therefore, it is especially important to thoroughly study and reveal the internal flow characteristic of centrifugal pumps under gas entrainment conditions. Several pioneering relevant studies on the basic theory, numerical simulation and experiment of how gas-entrainment affects pump performance degradation have been done. Murakami and Minemura [6,7] firstly conducted experimental works and developed a two-phase, one dimensional, flow model. In their research hydraulic-head degradation and abrupt flow-pattern changes were observed as more air entered the system. Furukawa et al. [8,9] designed a centrifugal pump using an outlet impeller blade angle greater than 90 • with a set of tandem blades. They obtained rather good two-phase flow performances, but their design failed at low flow rates. It is also known that open impellers have better capabilities than shrouded ones with respect to two phase flows due to the stronger mixing created by tip blade leakage and induced vortex flows structures (Cappellino et al. [10], Mansour et al. [11]). Flow patterns play an important role affecting hydraulic performance and energy conversion, even in the single phase flow of centrifugal pumps [12]. Releva...

As important parts of underground water conveyance equipment, diving tubular pumps are widely used in various fields related to the national economy. Research and development of submersible pumps with better performance have become green goals that need to be achieved urgently in low-carbon development. This paper provides an effective approach for the enhancement of the performance of a diving tubular pump by adopting computational fluid dynamics, one-dimensional theory, and response surface methodology. First, the flow loss characteristics of the pump under several flow rate conditions are analyzed by entropy production theory, and then the impeller and guide vanes are redesigned using the traditional one-dimensional theory. Then, the surface response experimental method is used to improve pump hydraulic efficiency. The streamline angle (A) of the front cover of the impeller blade, the placement angle (B) of the middle streamline inlet, and the placement angle (C) of the rear cover flowline inlet are the response variables to optimize the design parameters of the diving tubular pump. Results show that wall entropy production and turbulent kinetic energy entropy production play the leading role in the internal flow loss of the diving tubular pump, while viscous entropy production can be ignored. The flow loss inside the impeller is mainly concentrated at the inlet and the outlet of the impeller blade, and the flow loss inside the guide vane is mainly concentrated in the area near the guide vane and the entrance of the guide vane. A, B, and C are all significant factors that affect efficiency. The order of the influencing factors from strong to weak is as follows: A2 (p = 0.000) > C (p = 0.007) = A × B (p = 0.007) > B (p = 0.023) > B2 (p = 0.066) > A× C (p =0.094) > A (p = 0.162) > C2 (p = 0.386) > A×B (p =0.421). The best combination of response variables after surface response test design is A = 9°, B = 31°, and C = 36°. After optimization, the pump efficiency and the head of the model pump are increased by 32.99% and 18.71%, respectively, under the design flow rate. The optimized model pump is subjected to tests, and the test data and the simulation data are in good agreement, which proves the feasibility of using the surface response method to optimize the design of the model pump.

Results on overall pump head and efficiency performance, pressure pulsation and high speed camera visualization of flow patterns behavior are presented for different inlet air-water void fractions at a given rotational speed. With the increase of inlet void fractions and decrease of the flow rates, the size of bubbles increase and tend to agglomerate in specific impeller passage locations along the blade chord. The starting point of pump breakdown is related to a strong inward reverse flow occurring in a specific location near the shroud gap of the impeller and volute tongue region. Using a constant air void fraction value of 2%, pressure pulsation frequency results are analyzed in relation with local flow mixture patterns and flow rate modification.

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Most of the research on the cavitation with entrained air has focused on the military direction, but it ,about centrifugal pumps, which is relevant to people's livelihood, is still relatively lacking. In order to study the basic law of the development of cavitation inside centrifugal pumps under aeration conditions, a test bench suitable for cavitation experiments with incoming flow containing gas was obtained. Furthermore, a single-stage single-suction 6-blade centrifugal pump was used as the research object to conduct pressure pulsation experiments under cavitation condition when the incoming flow was 1.0% air viod fraction at 2900r/min-50m3/h. The results showed that: After cavitation happened, the greater aeration content will deteriorate the pump's anti-cavitation performance, but the head curve is more gentle in falling down compared to natural cavitation. Hence aeration has a beneficial effect on the performance degradation of the pump under the cavitation condition. At the same time, before the cavitation number drops to the fracture cavitation number of the pump, aeration has improvement in the efficiency of the pump in different degrees , especially in the situation with the ventilated rate of 1.0%. The main frequency of pressure pulsation at the inlet and outlet of the test pump after aeration is dominated by the blade frequency. The shaft frequency signal at the outlet gradually decreases with the cavitation number lessened. Moreover the amplitude of the blade frequency grows slightly with the reduction of the cavitation number. But it tends to soar when the cavitation number is less than the fracture cavitation number.