No abstract

The radial gap between the impeller tips and volute tongue is an important factor influencing the overall performance and unsteady pressure fields of the pump as turbine (PAT). In this paper, a numerical investigation of the PAT's steady performance with different radial gaps was first performed. The results show that there is an optimal radial gap for a PAT to achieve its highest efficiency. An analysis of the PAT's unsteady pressure fields indicates that the rotorstator interaction of a rotating impeller and stationery volute would cause high frequency unsteady pulsation within the volute and low frequency unsteady pressure pulsation within the impeller. The high frequency unsteady pressure pulsation would propagate through the PAT's flow channel. Thus, the unsteady pressure field within the impeller is the combined effect of these two kinds of pressure pulsations. The unsteady pressure pulsation within the outlet pipe is mainly caused by the propagation of unsteady pressure formed within the volute. With the increase of the radial gap, the amplitude of high frequency unsteady pressure pulsation within the volute caused by the rotor-stator interaction is decreased, while the amplitude of the low frequency unsteady pressure pulsation caused by the rotor-stator interaction within the impeller remains unchanged.

A pump is not ideally designed to operate as a turbine. To improve the efficiency of a pump as turbine (PAT), the redesign of the PAT, according to the flow of the turbine, is required. The blade wrap angle is one of the main geometric parameters in impeller design. Therefore, an investigation into the blade wrap angle to the PAT’s influence can be useful. In order to understand blade wrap angle to the influence of the PAT, this paper numerically investigated three different specific speeds of PATs with different blade wrap angles. The validity of numerical simulation was first confirmed through a comparison between numerical and experimental results. The performance change of the PATs with the blade wrap angle was acquired. A detailed hydraulic loss distribution and a theoretical analysis were performed to investigate the reasons for performance changes caused by the blade wrap angle. The results show that there is an optimal blade wrap angle for a PAT to achieve the highest efficiency and the optimal blade wrap angle decreases with an increasing specific speed. A performance analysis shows the PAT’s flow versus pressure head (Q-H) and flow versus generated shaft power (Q-P) curves are lowered with the decrease of the blade wrap angle. The hydraulic loss distribution and theoretical analysis illustrate that it is the decrease of hydraulic loss within the impeller, together with the decrease of the theoretical head, that results in the performance decrease. The decrease of hydraulic loss within the impeller is attributed to the shortened impeller blade passage and the reduced velocity gradient within the impeller flow channel. With the decrease of the blade wrap angle, the slip factor of the PAT’s impeller is decreased; therefore, its theoretical head is also decreased.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

The rotor-stator interaction of a rotating impeller and a stationary volute could cause strong pressure pulsations and generate flow induced noise and vibration in a pump used as a turbine (PAT). Blade number is one of the main geometric parameters of the impeller. In this paper, a numerical investigation of the PAT’s unsteady pressure field with different blade numbers was performed. The accuracy of global performance prediction by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was first verified through comparison between numerical and experimental results. Unsteady pressure fields of the PAT with different blade numbers were simulated, and the pulsations were extracted at various locations covering the PAT’s three main hydraulic parts. A detailed analysis of the unsteady pressure field distributions within the PAT’s control volume and comparison of unsteady pressure difference caused by the increase of blade number were performed. The transient flow results provided the unsteady pressure distribution within PAT and showed that increasing the blade number could effectively reduce the amplitude of pressure pulsations. Finally, unsteady pressure field tests were performed and some unsteady results obtained by unsteady field analysis were validated.

No abstract