University of Twente Student Theses
Low flow, high head
Olimulder, R.J. (2015) Low flow, high head.
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| Abstract: | In the petrochemical industry, centrifugal pumps are extensively used in a wide range of applications. The pump characteristics, such as required head and flow rate, can be specified using the pump specific speed. Of particular design interest to Flowserve Hengelo are the pumps with low specific speeds. These are pumps with a high head and low flow rate. In these pumps hydraulic and secondary losses play a larger role. Also pumps tend to become unstable at flow rates below the design flow rate, thus diminishing the stable operating range. Because customers require a continuous rising head-flow rate curve from the design point to the shut-off point, some research shall be done to better understand the flow phenomenon occurring at part load and to implement this in a design strategy. The first part of this report is a literature study to find out what is already known about the flow through a centrifugal diffuser pump at part load. Also some research was done to find possible solutions to increase the stable operating range of low specific speed centrifugal diffuser pumps. Since the head loss at part load seems to be caused by the diffuser geometry, this research concentrates on different diffuser geometries. Little was found on centrifugal diffuser pumps, however, expanding the search to include centrifugal compressors did result in some solutions. The second part of this report deals with the implementation of the proposed solutions in computational models to test their effect on the stability, head capacity curve and efficiency of the pump. The third part will be to actually produce the designed diffusers and test them with the specified impeller. And of course relate the test results to the CFD results. The final step can be to optimize the design procedure for centrifugal diffuser pumps with low specific speeds. |
| Item Type: | Internship Report (Master) |
| Clients: | Flowserve Hengelo, the Netherlands |
| Faculty: | ET: Engineering Technology |
| Subject: | 52 mechanical engineering |
| Programme: | Mechanical Engineering MSc (60439) |
| Keywords: | Centrifugal pumps, low specific speed, diffuser |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/70254 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
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