Detection of Cavitation through Acoustic Generation in Centrifugal Pump Impeller

Abstract

The most common device which transport fluid in industries, agriculture as well as domestic water supply is the centrifugal pump. Based on fluid transfer conditions, several let-downs are occur in the centrifugal pump, cavitation is one among them. The flow pattern at the eye of impeller deviates from the ideal case with the occurrence of cavitation. Due to cavitation, vibration occurs on blades that generates noise in pump. In this study, the acoustics generated in centrifugal pump impeller due to cavitation is detected with the sound pressure by using 3-Dimensional, steady and unsteady state computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis of an industrial centrifugal pump impeller. Harmonic force analysis with blade row model helps in finding the sound pressure. The acoustics generated with unsteady-state is compared with cavitation at steady-state CFD analysis. The Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equations model as well as Shear Stress Transport (SST) turbulence model are used for the CFD simulation. The results show that the sound pressure calculated increases with the increase in cavitation (i.e. formation of vapour bubbles and sudden drop in head) which shows that high noises are generated by centrifugal pump impeller at lower net positive suction head (NPSH) at a particular discharge.

Research on the operation condition indicator for centrifugal pump based on sensorless monitoring technology

“…Low-frequency noise component presents significant fluctuations during the full development of cavitation. The low-frequency noise distribution between 0–50Hz and 50–100Hz changes most obviously as the cavitation deteriorates, other high-frequency band broadband noise levels basically follow the similar law as low-frequency noise, which could be due to the combined effects of torque disturbance and noise, vibration 25 result from the collapse of vapor bubbles.…”

Computational Approaches in Industrial Centrifugal Pumps

“…Detailed analysis of cavitation detection in a centrifugal pump impeller using acoustic generation can be found in Jaiswal et al [52].…”

Impact of Transient Gas Injection on Flow-Induced Noise in Centrifugal Pumps

“…Wang et al (2017), Si et al (2020), Liu et al (2016), Gao et al (2017), and Dong et al (2018) studied the noise in centrifugal pumps under different operating conditions by performing experiments and numerical simulations. They analysed the effects of rotational speed, flow rate, cavitation (Rehman et al 2013;Jaiswal et al 2019Jaiswal et al , 2022, and backflow (Si et al 2013) on flow-induced noise in pumps. Wang et al (2019) evaluated the influence of different turbulence models on the accuracy of acoustic simulations.…”