• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.35-40
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• 2015

Centrifugal pumps consume considerable amounts of energy in various industrial applications. Therefore, improving the efficiency of pumps machine is a crucial challenge in industrial world. This paper presents numerical investigation of flow characteristics in volutes of centrifugal pumps in order to compare the energy consumption. A wide range of volumetric flow rate has been investigated for each case. The standard k-${\varepsilon}$ is adopted as the turbulence model. The impeller rotation is simulated employing the Multi Reference Frames(MRF) method. First, two different conventional design methods, i.e., the constant angular momentum(CAM) and the constant mean velocity (CMV) are studied and compared to a baseline volute model. The CAM volute profile is a logarithmic spiral. The CMV volute profile shape is an Archimedes spiral curve. The modified volute models show lower head value than baseline volute model, but in case of efficiency graph, CAM curve has higher values than others. Finally for this part, CAM curve is selected to be used in the simulation of different cross-section shape. Two different types of cross-section are generated. One is a simple rectangular shape, and the other one is fan shape. In terms of different cross-section shape, simple rectangular geometry generated higher head and efficiency. Overall, simulation results showed that the volute designed using constant angular momentum(CAM) method has higher characteristic performances than one by CMV volute.