1085

2017,29(6):1085-1088
DOI: 10.1016/S1001-6058(16)60822-3

Design and experiment of the centrifugal pump impellers with twisted inlet vice
blades *

Hong-xun Chen (陈红勋), Jian-wu He (何建武), Chao Liu (刘超)

Shanghai Institute of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200072, China,
E-mail: chenhx@shu.edu.cn

(Received July 10, 2017, Revised August 14, 2017)

Abstract: In order to introduce gap drainage technology into practice, the design concept and expression format of spatial geometry
are proposed for gap drainage impeller with twisted vice blades. First, the profile of vice blade at leading edge and relative position
of main blade need to be parameterized. In addition, the influence of these parameters on the performance of a centrifugal pump
should be studied. After the above-mentioned work is done, a centrifugal pump with good performance can be designed. On the basis
of previous research results, the geometric parameters of twisted blades are determined and the centrifugal pump impellers are
designed and manufactured. Through performance tests and cavitation tests, it is verified that the twisted vice blades on centrifugal
pumps are effective and practical.

Key words: Centrifugal pump, gap drainage technique, twisted blade, parameterization, performance, experiment


Gap drainage technology is a design scheme for inlet flow channel area. This made flow velocity field
centrifugal pump impellers proposed by the author. distribution more uniform to reduce the energy loss, as
With the addition of a vice blade which is overlapped can be seen in Fig.1.
with main blade and hold a certain gap in the vicinity
of the leading edge of main blade, the flow in the
centrifugal pump is effectively controlled and there-
fore the performance is improved.
Since gap drainage impeller has been put forward,
the author and his collaborators have carried out a
series of research[1-7]. In terms of the design of gap
drainage impeller, the optimized design process of
vice blades are explored, as a preliminary. For the re-
search into mechanism, a scalable detached simulation
(SDES)[4] model was proposed and developed based
on the detached eddy simulation (DES)[8] method.
By numerical analysis based on SDES model and
flow visualization experiments[4], it was considered Fig.1 (Color online) Water velocity distributions[4]
that the leading edge deviating from original position
reduced the blade exclusion and the vice blades In addition, the separated flow would be sup-
overlapping partly with main blades increased the pressed at the leading edge as a result of guide flow
function of the vice blades of gap drainage impellers,
and high pressure fluid on the pressure surface passes
* Project supported by the National Natural Science through the gap into the suction surface which com-
Foundation of China (Grant No. 51379120). pensates pressure to low pressure zones to some
Biography: Hong-xun Chen (1962- ), Male, Ph. D., Professor extent. At the same time, the fluid ejected from the
gap produces a disturbance to the cavitation region,
which accelerates the cavity shedding and suppresses
1086

the formation of large cavitation area to improve the gap drainage blade can be described in Figs.3(a), 3(b).
cavitation performance, as are illustrated in Fig.2.

Fig.2 (Color online) Water vapour volume[4]

Based on theoretical analysis, numerical simula-

tion and PIV flow field tests, the mechanism how gap
drainage impellers improve hydraulic performance
and cavitation performance of low specific speed
centrifugal pumps has been deeply studied. Further-
more, the measurement of pressure pulsation and
vibration was carried out at inlet, outlet and volute
zone of centrifugal pumps with gap impellers under
cavitation and non-cavitation conditions. It was found
that gap drainage blades also improve the dynamic
characteristics of centrifugal pumps in a certain range
of conditions.
Currently, gap drainage technology is mainly used
for cylindrical blades. In order to introduce gap drain-
Fig.3 (Color online) Geometric drawing process of the gap
age technology into practice widely, the twisted vice drainage impeller
blade should be studied based on the above physical
mechanism. The profile of the vice blade at leading (1) The total wrap angle 0 is determined by
edge and relative position of main blade need to be
parameterized, and the influence of these parameters number of blades Ζ and specific speed ns . The
on the performance of a centrifugal pump should be initial inlet location points (A1, B1, C1) of the blade, as
explored. The essence of spatial geometric expression well as the outlet location points (A2, B2, C2) are
for a traditional centrifugal impeller is to calculate obtained according to the hydraulic design method of
geometric parameters according to performance a traditional centrifugal impeller.
parameters, draw main streamlines to determine the (2) According to the design method of the tradi-
working surface of blade, and then obtain the whole tional impeller, three streamlines on meridional cross-
blade by thickening surface based on a certain law. section which is starting from A1, B1 and C1 are drawn,
Compared with a traditional impeller, a gap and flow surfaces A, B and C are formed by rotating
impeller has a short blade at the leading edge, which around the rotation axis.
partially overlap and hold a gap with main blade. The (3) Inlet angle (1a , 1b , 1c ) and outlet angle
vice blade usually can be designed and modified on
(2a , 2b , 2c ) are calculated and selected properly.
the basis of the traditional impeller. The gap impellers
have the same structure parameters as traditional According to a given change rule of blade angle, three
impellers, which means that they are identical in meri- smooth streamlines are fitted on the spatial flow
dional cross-section. The basic process of drawing the surface.

(4) The middle streamline is used as an example
to illustrate the drawing procedure of gap drainage
blades. Based on the middle blade profile drawn in
Step 2, the positions that boundary layers are separa-
ted are inferred by experience. The truncation point
B1G is determined preliminarily, and molded line
B1-B2 is divided into two segment (B1-B1G, B1G-B2).
(5) The leading edge segment (B1-B1G) is re-
moved, and the position of the remaining part (B1G-B2)
remains unchanged. B1G-B2 is defined as the middle
molded line of main blade, and inlet angle 1b g of
main blade are obtained. The wrap angle correspon-
ding to the middle molded line is defined as the wrap
angle of main blade 2 . Generally, 2 should be
less than 0 , which means main blade is slightly
shorter than entire blade designed according to tradi-
tional method.
(6) The inlet location point (B1G) of main blade
along the streamline on meridional cross-section is
moved to obtain the auxiliary point Bʹ. The movement
distance (s) should be larger than thickness of the
flow surface corresponding to this point. Then the
point is rotated  around Ζ axis to determine the
outlet location point (B2G) on the middle streamline.
The intersection angle ( ) between the meridional
planes, where B1G and B2G locate, is defined as the
overlapping degree between vice blade and main
blade that should be determined according to
experience. To ensure the smooth flow, the outlet
angle (  2b g ) of vice blade can be determined by
referring the inlet angle ( 1b g ) of main blade. De-
pending on the actual situation, it could be made
appropriate adjustments.
(7) The wrap angle of vice blade is defined as 1 ,
and appropriate 1 is selected to re-determine the
inlet location point (B1) of the middle streamline and
determine the inlet angle (1b ) of vice blade. At this
time, the total wrap angle of vice blade and main
blade is defined as gap .
(8) According to the given law about drawing
blade profile described in Step 3, molded line B1-B2G
is drawn that be called the middle molded line of vice
blade. At this point, the process of drawing the middle
molded line B1- B2G and B1G -B2 have been finished.
(9) Then, the procedure for segmenting of the
initial blade, re-determining of the location points and
reshaping the profile of vice blade is repeated. In
accordance with the principle that molded lines should
be smoothly transited, the molded lines on front cover
(A1-A2G,, A1G-A2) and back cover (C1-C2G, C1G-C2)of
the main and vice blade are drawn respectively.
1087
(10) The molded lines obtained by the above
method are fitted to the working surfaces of main and
vice blade. According to the law of thickening blades,
the working surfaces are thickened to obtain the back
surfaces of the main and vice blade.
Designing gap drainage blades need to determine
some additional parameters ( 1 , 2 ,  , gap ,
s ). Currently, these parameters are mainly deter-
mined in accordance with the principle of reducing
exclusion and suppressing flow separation, which are
determined by designer’s experience.
On the basis of the above, a centrifugal pump
impeller with good performance is designed and
manufactured as shown in Fig.3(c). And the hydraulic
performance and cavitation performance tests are
carried out on the open loop test rig. The performance
curves in Fig.4 shows that the Q -  ( Q and 
respectively represent the flow rate and efficiency)
curve of the gap pump is overall higher than the
traditional pump, which means all conditions have
been improved to some extent. The Q - H ( H is
the abbreviation of head) curves tend to be flat at
initial stages, and head of the gap pump is basically
the same as the traditional one under low flow rate
conditions. As flow rate increases, the Q - H curve
of the gap pump moves up as a whole. That is to say,
head of the gap pump is higher than the traditional one
under other conditions except for low flow rate
conditions. Furthermore, the gap pump’s power is
widely lower than the traditional one’s, and the
difference decreases as flow rate increases.
Fig.4 Performance curves of the two pumps
Flow rate of the performance curves shown in
Fig.4 is replaced by specific speed (denoted by ns ) as
the results shown in Fig.5. It is found that compared
with the traditional impeller, efficiency of the gap
pump is improved under different specific speeds. And
when ns is in the range from 35 to 70, the effect
become more obvious.
1088
Fig.5 Specific speed-performance parameters curves
Figure 6 shows the cavitation performance curves
of the two pumps at three flow rates. It can be seen
that regardless of gap impeller or traditional impeller,
with the net positive suction head available ( NPSH a )
gradually reduced, the head curves are showing a
trend from nearly straight to slow downward to steep
downward under different flow rates.
Fig.6 Cavitation performance curves of the two impellers
The working point at which pump head is
reduced by 3% is regarded as the critical cavitation
point, and NPSHa corresponding to this situation is
defined as NPSH c [8]. It is listed that the NPSH c
values of the two pumps under three flow rates, as
shown in Table 1. It can be seen that NPSHc of gap
pump is both lower than traditional pump under
different flow rate conditions. With the gradual
increase of flow rates, the difference between
traditional pump and gap pump is also increasing,
especially it reaches 0.37m when Q is 48m3/h. It
shows that during the decline of NPSHa , the time
when cavitation occurs for gap pump is later than with
traditional one. That means gap pump has better
cavitation performance, especially in the high flow
rate area, the effect is more significant.
Table 1 NPSH c values of two pumps at different flow
rates
Traditional impeller Gap impeller
Flow rate
NPSH c /m NPSH c /m
Q1 = 26 m3 / h 0.90 0.89
3
Q2 = 37 m / h 1.15 1.06
Q3 = 48 m3 / h 2.15 1.78
In this paper, the design idea and method for the
spatial geometry of twisted gap drainage blade are put
forward, which develop the design method of gap
drainage blade from 2-D to 3-D twisted blade and will
achieve an advancement for introducing gap drainage
technology into practice. It is verified that the twisted
vice blades can improve the hydraulic performance
and cavitation performance of the centrifugal pumps.
The influence of the geometric parameters of gap
drainage blade on the performance of centrifugal
pump is not entirely clear, but this work provides
some new idea for the following research. It is
valuable to explore the mechanism how these geome-
tric parameters affect the hydraulic performance,
cavitation performance, pressure pulsation, vibration
and characteristic curves of centrifugal pump in future
researches.
References
[1] Chen H. X., Liu W. W., Jian W. et al. Development of
low specific-speed centrifugal pump impellers based on
flow control technique [J]. Chinese Journal of Drainage
and Irrigation Machinery Engineering, 2011, 6(9):
466-470(in Chinese).
[2] Zhu B. Research on the mechanism of performance im-
proving in low specific speed centrifugal pump with gap
drainage blades [D]. Doctoral Thesis, Shanghai, China:
Shanghai University, 2014(in Chinese).
[3] Zhang W. Z. Experimental research on pressure fluctua-
tion and vibration property of centrifugal pump with gap
drainage impeller [D]. Master Thesis, Shanghai, China:
Shanghai University, 2016(in Chinese).
[4] Zhu B., Chen H., Wei Q. Numerical and experimental in-
vestigation of cavitating characteristics in centrifugal
pump with gap impeller [J]. International Journal of
Turbo and Jet-Engines, 2014, 31(2): 187-196.
[5] Zhu B., Chen H. X. Cavitating suppression of low specific
speed centrifugal pump with gap drainage blades [J].
Journal of Hydrodynamics, 2012, 24(5): 729-736.
[6] Zhang R., Chen H. X. Numerical analysis of cavitation
within slanted axial-flow pump[ J]. Journal of Hydrody-
namics, 2013, 25(5): 663-672.
[7] Wei Q., Chen H. X., Zhang R. Numerical research on the
performance of slot hydrofoil [J]. Journal of Hydrodyna-
mics, 2015, 27(1): 105-111.
[8] Guan X. F. Modern pump theory and design [M]. Beijing,
China: China Aerospace Publishing House, 2011(in
Chinese).