• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.30-39
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• 2017

In the current study, identifying regimes and behaviors of the various viscous fluids in a typical horizontal single-stage centrifugal pump and improving its performance by enhancing volute throat area have been surveyed numerically and experimentally. Indeed the initial pump had insufficient head at BEP (Best Efficient Point) in relevant applications. In order to solve this problem, the method of increasing the volute throat area on the prototype was used in steps and eventually the increased head values have been achieved. Then modified centrifugal pump, that has been constructed based on the modified control volume from numerical results, has been tested thoroughly. The maximum head and efficiency discrepancy between numerical and experimental results in BEP were 1.4 and 2.6% respectively. The effects of viscous fluids, from 1 cSt to 500 cSt, on the performance curves of centrifugal pump have been investigated as well and results showed that viscous fluids has significant effect on them. Indeed the highest head and efficiency in the same conditions at BEP has been obtained in viscosity 1 cst which was by 19.2% and 44% greater than the viscosity 500 cSt. It is also found that the highest viscous fluid had the highest energy consumption as the absorbed power of highest viscous fluid, 500 cSt, increased up to approximately 55% above the lowest viscous fluid, 1 cSt, values.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.9 no.1 s.34
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• pp.40-46
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• 2006

Efficiency of a centrifugal pump is known to drop rapidly with a decrease of specific speed $n_s$. However, below $n_s=60\;[min^{-1},\;m^3/min,\;m]$, the pump characteristics are not yet clear. Therefore, present study is aimed to investigate the influence of large change of specific speed on the performance of a very low specific speed centrifugal pump. Moreover, influence of impeller configuration on the performance of very low specific speed pump is investigated. The results show that very low specific speed can be accomplished by reducing volute throat sectional area using circular spacer. Influence of the spacer's location and configuration in the discharge passage on the pump performance is very small. Best efficiency of very low specific speed centrifugal pump decreases proportionally to the specific speed but the best efficiency decreases on a large scale in the range of $n_s<40$. Influence of impeller configuration on the pump performance and radial thrust of centrifugal pump are considerably small in the range of extremely low specific speed $(n_s=25)$.