COMPUTATIONAL ANALYSIS OF CENTRIFUGAL PUMP WITH 4,5,6,7 –BLADED ENCLOSED IMPELLER

M. R. Arul Muthu Kumaran

Abstract: Centrifugal pumps are extensively used to transfer liquids to the required head with the help of centrifugal forces. The impeller forms the crucial part of the centrifugal pumps. Its shapes, dimensions, number of the blades affects the overall performance of the pumps.In this paper, effect of number of blades in the impellers are investigated using CFD tool. Considering the number of blades in impeller, less number of blades are unable to fully impose their geometry on the flow, whereas too many number of blades restrict the flow passage which leads to higher losses. This paper discuss about the effects of the number of blades in the performance of the centrifugal pump.In order to realize this, PTC CREO 3.0 ™ is employed to design the centrifugal pump with the 4-bladed, 5 -bladed,6 –bladed ,7-bladed enclosed impeller and simulated using ANSYS FLUENT ™ 17.2.The results obtained demonstrate that the efficiency of the pump increases gradually with increase of the blade number and the maximum static pressure and efficiency is observed at 6- bladed centrifugal pumps. Computational investigation of this kind helps in great time and cost reduction compared to the experimental work.

Keywords: Centrifugal pump, blades, CFD

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2017.0605009