Regular Article
Numerical analysis of pressure fluctuation in a multiphase rotodynamic pump with air–water two-phase flow
School of Mechanical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
* Corresponding author: yuzhiyi@bit.edu.cn
Received:
12
September
2018
Accepted:
12
December
2018
Pressure fluctuation in single-phase pumps has been studied widely, while less attention has been paid to research on multiphase pumps that are commonly used in the petroleum chemical industry. Therefore, this study investigates the pressure fluctuation for a multiphase rotodynamic pump handling air–water two-phase flow. Simulations based on the Euler two-fluid model were carried out using ANSYS_CFX16.0 at different Inlet Gas Void Fractions (IGVFs) and various flow rate values. Under conditions of IGVF = 0% (pure water) and IGVF = 15%, the accuracy of the numerical method was tested by comparing the experimental data. The results showed that the rotor–stator interaction was still the main generation driver of pressure fluctuation in gas–liquid two-phase pumps. However, the fluctuation near the impeller outlet ascribe to the rotor–stator interaction was weakened by the complex gas–liquid flow. For the different IGVF, the variation trend of fluctuation was similar along the streamwise direction. That is, the fluctuation in the impeller increased before decreasing, while in the guide vane it decreased gradually. Also, the fluctuation in the guide vane was generally greater than for the impeller and the maximum amplitude appeared in the vicinity of guide vane inlet.
© W. Zhang et al., published by IFP Energies nouvelles, 2019
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
