A study on the flow characteristics around a suction pipe of circulation water pump in thermal power plant

화력발전소 순환수펌프 흡입관 주위에서의 유동특성에 관한 연구

Vortex and swirl occurring in a pump suction intake sump normally reduce the performance and disturb the safe operation of the circulation water pump in thermal power plants. This paper presents a case study of one particular intake sump design via a CFD analysis and a hydraulic model testing. The physical experiments and numerical analysis were performed under two flow and three level variation conditions. The vortex patterns around the pump suction pipe have been predicted by a commercial CFD code with the k-${\varepsilon}$ model. The model tests were conducted on a 1/10 model for a practical intake sump. The location, number and general pattern of the free surface vortex and submerged vortex predicted by CFD simulation were found to be a good agreement with those observed in the model testing.