• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.317-323
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• 2011

Mini centrifugal pumps having a diameter smaller than 100mm are employed in many fields; automobile radiator pump, ventricular assist pump, cooling pump for electric devices and so on. Further, the needs for mini centrifugal pumps would become larger with the increase of the application of it for electrical machines. It is desirable that the mini centrifugal pump design be as simple as possible as precise manufacturing is required. But the design method for the mini centrifugal pump is not established because the internal flow condition for these small-sized fluid machines is not clarified and conventional theory is not suitable for small-sized pumps. Therefore, we started research on the mini centrifugal pump for the purpose of development of high performance mini centrifugal pumps with simple structure. Three types of rotors with different outlet angles are prepared for an experiment. The performance tests are conducted with these rotors in order to investigate the effect of the outlet angle on performance and internal flow condition of mini centrifugal pumps. In addition to that, the blade thickness is changed because blockage effect in the mini centrifugal pump becomes relatively larger than that of conventional pumps. On the other hand, a three dimensional steady numerical flow analysis is conducted with the commercial code (ANSYS-Fluent) to investigate the internal flow condition. It is clarified from the experimental results that head of the mini centrifugal pump increases according to the increase of the blade outlet angle and the decrease of the blade thickness. In the present paper, the performance of the mini centrifugal pump is shown and the internal flow condition is clarified with the results of the experiment and the numerical flow analysis. Furthermore, the effects of the blade outlet angle and the blade thickness on the performance are investigated and the internal flow of each type of rotor is clarified by the numerical analysis results.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.11-17
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• 2013

Mini centrifugal pumps having a diameter smaller than 100mm are employed in many fields. But the design method for the mini centrifugal pump is not established because the internal flow condition for these small-sized fluid machines is not clarified and conventional theory is not suitable for small-sized pumps. Therefore, mini centrifugal pumps with simple structure were investigated by this research. Splitter blades were adopted in this research to improve the performance and the internal flow condition of mini centrifugal pump which had large blade outlet angle. The original impeller without the splitter blades and the impeller with the splitter blades were prepared for an experiment. The performance tests are conducted with these rotors in order to investigate the effect of the splitter blades on performance and internal flow condition of mini centrifugal pump. On the other hand, a three dimensional steady numerical flow analysis is conducted with the commercial code (ANSYS-CFX) to investigate the internal flow condition in detail. It is clarified from experimental results that the performance of the mini centrifugal pump is improved by the effect of the splitter blades. Blade-to-blade low velocity regions are suppressed in the case with the splitter blades and total pressure loss regions are decreased. The effects of the splitter blades on the performance and the internal flow condition are discussed in this paper.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.121-126
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• 2009

The internal flow field in a centrifugal pump working at the several flow conditions has been measured by using the particle image velocimetry (PIV) technique with the laser induced fluorescence (LIF) particles and the refractive index matched (RIM) facilities. The impeller of the centrifugal pump has an outlet diameter in 100mm, and consists of six two-dimensional curvature backward swept blades of constant thickness. Measured results give reliable flow patterns in the pump. It is obvious that application of LIF particle and RIM are the key methods to obtain the right PIV measured results in pump internal flow.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2008.03a
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• pp.775-780
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• 2008

This paper reports on the internal flow of a centrifugal mini pump working at the low flow rate operating conditions. The RNG $\kappa-\varepsilon$ turbulence model was employed to simulate the three-dimensional turbulent flow in the pump. To examine and certify the simulation results, a transparent acrylic centrifugal mini pump model which is suitable for PIV measurement has been developed. The tongue region and the passages region between blades were investigated using PIV. In order to eliminate the effect of refraction on the area closed to the wall and increase the measurement accuracy, the fluorescent particles were scatted into the working fluid with the tracing particles. It is found from the calculation and PIV measurement results that there is a large area of recirculation flow near the tongue at low flow rate operating conditions. The computationally predicted water head using the $\kappa-\varepsilon$ turbulence model at low flow rate operating conditions are in very good agreement with the experimentally measured water head and the mean velocity distributions at investigation area obtained by PIV and calculation showed a satisfactory agreement as well. Meanwhile, the results of PIV measurements show that the flow status in one passage is different to another. And for capturing the internal flow detail information, the $\kappa-\varepsilon$ turbulence model is not very suitable.