Alexandria Engineering Journal (2020) 59, 4247–4255

H O S T E D BY
Alexandria University

Alexandria Engineering Journal

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Analysis of fluid-induced force of centrifugal pump

impeller with compound whirl
Wenjie Zhou a,*, Yifan Wang a, Chao Li a, Weibin Zhang b, Guangkuan Wu c,d
a
School of Energy and Power Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China
b
Key Laboratory of Fluid and Power Machinery, Ministry of Education, Xihua University, Chengdu 610039, China
c
Institute of Water Resources and Hydro-electric Engineering, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710048, China
d
Zhejiang Fuchunjiang Hydropower Equipment Co., Ltd., Hangzhou 311501, China

Received 10 April 2020; revised 22 June 2020; accepted 20 July 2020

Available online 1 August 2020

KEYWORDS Abstract In order to research the fluid-induced force of centrifugal pump impeller with compound
Centrifugal pump; whirling, based on the N-S equations, the RNG k-e turbulence model is applied to simulate the low
Compound whirl; specific speed centrifugal pump under eccentric assembly condition. The effects of different flow
Fluid-induced force; rates, impeller eccentricities and whirl ratios on the fluid-induced force of impeller were investi-
Nonlinear fitting; gated. Finally, the fitting models of fluid-induced force with compound whirl were obtained by least
Numerical simulation square method (LSM). The results imply that the calculated results considering the impeller eccen-
tricity are closer to the experimental data than those without considering the eccentric whirl. In
addition, the extremum value of fluid-induced force of impeller has a significant positive correlation
with the impeller eccentricity. With the increase of flow rate, the fluid-induced force is non-
monotonic. The whirl ratio can change the numbers of peak and valley of fluid-induced force,
and the nonlinear fitting model of fluid-induced force using LSM presents high precision. This study
can provide important references for the design and fluid-structure interaction (FSI) vibration of
centrifugal pump.
Ó 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria
University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction trifugal pump components, there exists a phenomenon that the

mass center and geometric center do not coincide, and the
Centrifugal pump is widely used in the various fields of engi- impeller eccentricity will produce fluid-induced excitation force
neering and it has drawn much attentions by many scholars [7,8]. This periodic excitation force could affect the rotor
due to the complex flow phenomena [1–6]. There are many fac- dynamic characteristics and change the flow field in the cen-
tors affecting the internal flow of centrifugal pump, among trifugal pump. However, the present rotor model of pump sys-
which, due to the error in the production and assembly of cen- tem usually ignores the fluid-induced excitation effect of
impeller for simplified calculation [9–13]. Therefore, it is
* Corresponding author. important and meaningful to research the fluid-induced force
E-mail address: zhouwenjiezwj@ujs.edu.cn (W. Zhou). of impeller with eccentric whirl for the further study of rotor
Peer review under responsibility of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria coupled vibration.
University.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2020.07.028
1110-0168 Ó 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
4248
Exploring the flow field characteristics of centrifugal pump
is helpful to reveal the essence of fluid-induced characteristics
of centrifugal pump. Li et al. [14] utilized PIV technology to
measure the internal flow of centrifugal pump and pointed
out that as the flow rate decreases, there would appear clock-
wise vortex on the working surface of the blade, which might
increase the energy loss. Zhang et al. [15] proposed a nonlinear
hybrid RANS/LES method, which could capture the internal
flow characteristics and pressure pulsation signals of centrifu-
gal pump more effectively. Wang et al. [16] used CFX software
to study the influence of eccentricity on the internal flow and
the exterior performances in the centrifugal pump. Chalghoum
et al. [17–19] studied the effect of stator-stator interaction on
the pressure pulsation of centrifugal pump and found that
the pressure amplitude was obviously affected by the existence
of vortices. Zou et al. [20] studied the change of the flow field
around impeller in the start-up process of a large double-
suction centrifugal pump and analyzed the causes of the
change of transient fluid-induced vibration force. Hao et al.
[21,22] studied the effect of clearance on the internal flow char-
acteristics and the fluid-induced force from the aspects of tip
clearance and variable clearance. Tao [23] studied the pressure
pulsation of a main nuclear power plant pump impeller and
pointed out that the simulated values of the pressure pulsation
could not be well matched with the experimental values when
the impeller was not eccentric.
Fluid-induced force is the macroscopic manifestation of fluid
excitation effect, which has a great influence on the whole oper-
ation process of centrifugal pump. Li [24] changed the blade
load distribution and found that pre-loading the impeller would
make the flow more uniform, which could reduce the pressure
pulsation and the exciting force of impeller. Barrio et al.
[25,26] obtained the unsteady pressure distribution through
the pressure sensor and the radial integral of the clearance side
pressure. Li et al. [27] compared and analyzed the radial force
of a molten salt pump under the dual volute and single volute
structure. They found that the dual volute structure could effec-
tively balance the blade surface load and reduce the blade cir-
cumferential pressure fluctuation. Chen et al. [28] illustrated
that the radial force of centrifugal pump impeller decreased with
the increase of flow rate and the relative velocity distribution
became more uniform under large flow rate condition. Krzysz-
tof et al. [29] studied the radial force and axial push torque of
centrifugal pump impeller experimentally and numerically.
They found that there was a correlation between distributions
of radial force and axial thrust moment. Tan et al. [30] investi-
gated the effect of the guide vane outlet angle on the radial force
and hydraulic performance of a centrifugal pump. The calcu-
lated results implied that with the decrease of the guide vane
blade outlet angle, the pulsation amplitude of radial force
reduced obviously. Alemi et al. [31] explored the effects of mul-
tiple volute structures on hydraulic performance and fluid-
induced vibration force at off-design conditions.
Although there are a lot of studies on the excitation force of
impeller, most of them only consider the situation of impeller
self-rotation. In fact, the impeller whirls synchronously around
the geometric center of rotor system due to indelible eccentric-
ity. Compared with single impeller self-rotation, the motion
model of impeller considering compound motion can better
describe the internal flow field and fluid excitation characteris-
tics because it is closer to the real work condition. In this
paper, a novel model of low specific speed centrifugal pump
W. Zhou et al.
with compound whirl is proposed to investigate the fluid-
induced force. The accuracy of the proposed model is verified.
Besides, the effects of different eccentricity ratios, flow rates
and whirl ratios on the fluid-induced force are further analyzed
according to the radial force distribution. Finally, the nonlin-
ear fitting method, LMS, is applied to obtain the fitting func-
tions of fluid-induced force. The proposed model and
corresponding calculated results can provide another solving
method for the research of inner flow and fluid-induced char-
acteristics of centrifugal pump.
2. Numerical model and calculation method
2.1. Basic parameters of centrifugal pump
The research object in this paper is a two-dimensional cylindri-
cal vane centrifugal pump with low specific speed. The main
design parameters are shown in Table 1.
2.2. Physical model of centrifugal pump
The calculated model including the five fluid domains of cen-
trifugal pump (inlet, impeller, clearance, volute and outlet) is
established, the model is shown in Fig. 1. The motions of
impeller include two types in the real operation, on the one
hand, the impeller rotates around its rotation center O’ at
rotating speed X, on the other hand, it rotates around the geo-
metric center O of volute at whirl speed x. The corresponding
compound motion of impeller is shown in Fig. 2.
The distance between OO’ is e, which is called the impeller
eccentricity. The eccentricity ratio e is the ratio of impeller
eccentricity e to clearance width d1. The whirl ratio k is the
ratio of the whirl speed x to the impeller rotating speed X.
Fig. 3 shows the periodical compound motion of impeller
when whirl ratio is 1, which means that the impeller whirls
360° around the geometric center O meanwhile the impeller
synchronously rotates 360° around its rotation center O’ in
the same direction.
3. Numerical calculation method
3.1. Computing model of impeller
Based on the N-S equation, the RNG k-e model is adopted to
solve the problem, which can better adapt to high strain rate
Table 1 Main parameters of the model pump.
Design parameters Design
value
Design flow Qd (m3/h) 55
Head Hd (m) 20
Number of blades Z 6
Rotational speed X (rpm) 1450
Specific speed ns 69
Inlet and outlet diameter D1 (mm) 80
Outside diameter of impeller D2 (mm) 260
Base circle diameter of Volute D3 (mm) 290
Outlet width of impeller b1 (mm) 17
Clearance width between the impeller and volute d1 15
(mm)
Analysis of fluid-induced force of centrifugal pump impeller 4249

flow and complex flow in centrifugal pump to improve the cal-

1-Outlet 2-Volute
culation accuracy. In the unsteady calculation, the mesh-
D1 motion is considered because of its good calculation speed
and stability, the two domains, impeller and clearance, are
3-Clearance 4-Impeller set to rotating reference frame while the inlet, volute and outlet
5-Inlet remain stationary reference frame. The inlet boundary is set to
x x velocity inlet with 3.04 m/s and the outlet boundary is set to
z free outflow to simulate the real flow status of impeller.
Besides, the interfaces between the different domains are also
D2 D3
considered to improve the flow field data exchange. The wall
y D1 z adopts standard wall function and we establishes the coupling
b1 relationship between pressure and velocity by simple algo-
y
rithm. In order to guarantee the courant number is less than
d1 1, the convergence precision is set to 10
6 and corresponding
unsteady calculation time step is set to Dt = 1.1494  10
4.
Fig. 1 Structure diagram of centrifugal pump with eccentric
impeller. 3.2. Grid independence

In order to eliminate the influence of grid and ensure the accu-

racy of calculation, the grid independence is carried out. The
calculated head and efficiency are regarded as the differentia-
tion criterion. When the calculation error is less than 0.15%,
the lesser grid number model is considered to save the cost
of calculation. The grid numbers of different fluid domains
and corresponding results are listed in Table 2. Finally, the
grid number in serial number 3 is chosen for further
calculation.

4. Results and discussion

4.1. Validation of the proposed model

In order to verify the accuracy of the proposed model, the head

and efficiency curves of the centrifugal pump under three dif-
Fig. 2 Physical model of the impeller with eccentricity. ferent condition are compared with the experimental results,

x x x e ω
ε= λ=
d1 Ω

e
O O’

y y y
e e

(a)0 (b)72 (c)144

x x x

y e y y
e

(d)216 (e)288 (f)360

Fig. 3 Compound motion of impeller in one-period when k = 1.

4250 W. Zhou et al.

Table 2 Grid independence verification.

Fluid domain Series number
1 2 3 4
Inlet domain 331,656 464,318 611,246 819,067
Impeller domain 1,693,779 2,371,290 2,807,300 3,314,833
Volute-clearance domain 426,148 596,607 774,221 1,020,334
Outlet domain 174,954 244,935 244,935 244,935
Total number of grids/ten thousand 263 368 443 540
Head H/m 22.80 22.40 22.19 22.18
Efficiency g/% 80.30 81.80 81.91 82.01

which is shown in Fig. 4. It can be seen that when the eccentric-
ity of impeller is 2%, the maximum and minimum errors are
1.42% and 0.02%, respectively. While the maximum and min-
imum errors are 2.31% and 0.97%, respectively, when the
eccentricity is not considered. Besides, the errors of 4%-
eccentricity are larger than the other results as a whole. The
similar results also can be got in the efficiency curves, which
is presented in Fig. 4(b). The errors under 2%-eccentricity con-
dition are obviously smaller than the other results in the range
of [0.6Qd, 1.2Qd]. When the eccentricities are not considered
and 2%-eccentricity, the maximum errors are 4.62% and
1.82%, respectively. The calculated results clearly imply that
the eccentricity should be considered in the calculation of inner
flow characteristics and fluid-induced force of impeller. In fact,
the calculated results considering the eccentricity is closer to
the real work condition of centrifugal pump.
4.2. Influence of eccentricity on Fx and Fy
According to the results of unsteady calculation, the transient
pressure on the impeller wall can be integrated to obtain the
components of the fluid-induced force in the x- and y- direc-
tions under different working conditions. In addition, the
influences of eccentricity ratio, flow rate, whirl ratio on the
Fx and Fy are further researched.
The impeller always has a certain eccentricity due to incom-
plete alignment between the impeller and the shaft. In order to
research the influence of eccentricity on the fluid-induced
force, the following six eccentricity ratios (e = 0, 0.02, 0.04,
0.06, 0.08 and 0.1) are chosen to simulate the whirl motion
under the design flow rate condition. The corresponding
results are shown in Fig. 5. It is seen that both Fx and Fy have
six local peaks and troughs, the reason for this phenomenon is
the rotor–stator interaction caused by the periodic sweeping of
the six blades on the septal tongue. With the increase of eccen-
tricity ratio, the fluctuation range of Fx and Fy become signif-
icantly larger. Besides, the distribution of fluid-induced force
can be roughly divided into three areas according to the ampli-
tude of Fx and Fy with the increase of eccentricity ratio. As
Fig. 5(a) shown, Fx grows fastest in area (1), where is the far-
thest region from the volute tongue. The magnitude of fluid-
induced force in area (2) is close and the change is not obvious
for different eccentricity ratios. In area (3), Fx reaches the max-
imum negative value when e = 0.1, this is because the circum-
ferential position is closest to the volute tongue, where the
rotor–stator interaction is strongest. In Fig. 5(b), the change
trend of Fy is similar to that of Fx when the 90°angle difference
between the two coordinates is considered.

4.3. Influence of flow rate on Fx and Fy

The centrifugal pump always needs a variety of flow conditions

Fig. 4 Simulation results of head and efficiency under different
e.(See above-mentioned references for further information.)
to meet industrial requirements in actual operation. Fig. 6
show the distribution of Fx and Fy for four different flow rates.
As Fig. 6(a) shows, with the increase of flow rate from
0.6Qd to 1.2Qd, Fx shows obvious stratification phenomenon.
The fluctuation range of Fx is smallest when the centrifugal
pump works at design flow rate Qd, i,e,. both the large flow
Analysis of fluid-induced force of centrifugal pump impeller 4251

(a) = (a) 0.6Qd

40 = 200 0.8Qd
= 1.0Qd
30
= 1.2Qd
150
20 =
=
10 100
0 Area(3)

Fx / N
Fx / N

-10 50

-20
0
-30
-40 Area(1) -50
Area(2)
-50
-60 -100
0 36 72 108 144 180 216 252 288 324 360
0 36 72 108 144 180 216 252 288 324 360

θ/° θ/°

(b) 0.6Qd
(b) = 30 0.8Qd
60 =
25 1.0Qd
=
50 1.2Qd
=
20
=
40
= 15
30 Area(3) Area(3)
Fy / N
10
Fy / N

20
5
10
0
0
-5
-10 Area(2) Area(1) Area(2)
-10
-20
-15
-30 0 36 72 108 144 180 216 252 288 324 360
0 36 72 108 144 180 216 252 288 324 360
θ/°
θ/°
Fig. 6 Distribution of Fx and Fy for different Qd.
Fig. 5 Distribution of Fx and Fy for different e.

the different whirl ratios can cause different number of peaks

rate and small flow rate could cause larger fluctuation. In
Fig. 6(b), the fluctuation range of Fy is also smallest at Qd com-
pared with those at other flow rates. On the whole, the influ-
ence of flow rate on Fx is more obvious while it has a limited
influence on Fy. In addition, comparing the circumferential
angles of the six peaks and troughs of Fx and Fy, it is observed
that there exists a certain phase difference between the differ-
ent flow rates. The reason for this phenomenon probably is
that the strengths of rotor–stator interaction for different flow
rates are completely different, which change the position of
strong turbulence region, furthermore, the phase position of
circumferential pressure distribution shifts to cause this phase
difference.
4.4. Influence of whirl ratio on Fx and Fy
The fluid-induced force of impeller with compound motion is
also influenced by the whirl ratio. In Fig. 7, Four different
whirl ratios (k =
0.5, 0.5, 1.0 and 1.2) are selected to inves-
tigate the fluid-induced characteristics. It is clearly seen that
and troughs, i.e., the whirl ratio is related to the number of
local extremum of fluid-induced force. The product of whirl
ratio and the numbers of local extremum is a constant, which
is equal to the number of blades. The reason for above results
is that changing the period of whirl motion induces the change
of impeller’s relative position when each blade sweeps the
volute tongue. Therefore, the number of rotor–stator interac-
tion between the impeller and the volute tongue also changes.
The effects of positive and reverse whirl motions on the x-
and y- components are much different. In Fig. 7(a), Fx is
approximately symmetrical when the whirl ratios are
0.5
and 0.5. However, the angle difference of Fy changes to 180°
at the same two whirl ratios, which is shown in Fig. 7(b). In
addition, the fluctuation ranges of Fx and Fy under half-
frequency whirl condition are obviously larger than those
under the other two conditions. The reason for this result is
that the whirl speed is less than the rotating speed, the flow
field in the area between the impeller and volutes is seriously
disordered, which makes the distribution of the circumferential
pressure of the impeller more uneven.
4252 W. Zhou et al.

(a) λ = -0.5 (a) ε=0

λ = 0.5 0° ε = 0.02
10 60
λ = 1.0 330° 30° ε = 0.03
0 λ = 1.2 ε = 0.04
40
-10 300° 60°

-20 20
Fx / N

-30

Fr / N
0 270° 90°
-40

-50 20
-60 240° 120°
40
-70

0 36 72 108 144 180 216 252 288 324 360 210° 150°
60
180°
θ/°
(b) 50 λ = -0.5 (b) 0°
ε=0
λ = 0.5 60 ε = 0.06
330° 30°
40 λ = 1.0 ε = 0.08
λ = 1.2 ε = 0.10
40
30
300° 60°
20
20
Fy / N

10 Fr / N
0 270° 90°
0

-10
20
-20
240° 120°
40
-30

-40 210° 150°

0 36 72 108 144 180 216 252 288 324 360
60
180°
θ/°
Fig. 8 Effect of e on the resultant force.
Fig. 7 Distributions of Fx and Fy for different k.

two different eccentricity ratios, the number of peaks and

4.5. Influence of coupled effects on fr
Considering the different fluid-induced characteristics in x-
and y- coordinates, the further influences of eccentricity, flow
rate and whirl ratio on the resultant force of impeller are ana-
lyzed. As Fig. 8 shows, the resultant force for different eccen-
tricity presents petal shape and increases with the increase of
eccentricity ratio near the volute tongue (270° ~ 330°). How-
ever, the resultant force decreases as e increases to 0.1 when
the circumferential angle is near 90°. The overall change trend
is consistent with that in ref. [8] and the calculated results
imply that larger eccentricity can cause stronger rotor–stator
interaction.
In addition, when the impeller operates with eccentricity,
the resultant force appears angle shift even it also presents
nearly petal shape for different flow rates, which is shown in
Fig. 9. The angle shift phenomenon is not obvious when e is
0.02 while it should be not ignored when e increases to 0.03,
which means that the eccentricity has a great impact on the rel-
ative position of the strong turbulence area near the impeller.
Fig. 10 shows the influence of whirl ratio on resultant force for
troughs changes with the increase of whirl ratio. When e is
0.02, the resultant force is symmetrical distribution and the
extreme values are nearly same. Once the eccentricity ratio e
increases from 0.02 to 0.03, the resultant force increases greatly
at the range of 90° ~ 270° when the whirl ratios are
0.5 and
0.5. These results imply that half-frequency whirl plays a more
obvious effect on the resultant force for large eccentricity ratio.
4.6. Fitting model of fluid-induced force
Based on the calculated fluid-induced force, the corresponding
fitting model is proposed to provide an accurate theoretical
foundation for the further research of FSI vibration of coupled
rotor system. In the following part, the fitting model of Fx is
taken an example to introduce the fitting method of fluid-
induced force. Besides, in order to better describe the inner
fluid-induced characteristics, the LSM is used to obtain the
segmented fluid-induced force.
The circumferential angle h and the eccentricity ratio e are
selected as the independent variables, the range of h is 0° to
360° and the range of e is 0 to 0.1. Assuming the relationship
Analysis of fluid-induced force of centrifugal pump impeller 4253

(a) 0° 0.6Qd (a) 0°

λ = -0.5
150 0.8Qd 75 λ = 0.5
330° 30° 330° 30°
120 1.0Qd λ = 1.0
1.2Qd
60
λ = 1.2
90 300° 60° 45 300° 60°
60 30
30 15
Fr / N

Fr / N
0 270° 90° 0 270° 90°
30 15
60 30
90 240° 120° 240° 120°
45
120 60
210° 150° 210° 150°
150 75
180° 180°

(b) 0° 0.6Qd
(b) λ = -0.5
150 0° λ = 0.5
330° 75
30° 0.8Qd 330° 30°
120 1.0Qd
λ = 1.0
60
1.2Qd λ = 1.2
90 300° 60° 45 300° 60°
60 30
30 15
Fr / N

Fr / N
0 270° 90° 0 270° 90°
30 15
60 30
90 240° 120° 240° 120°
45
120 60
210° 150° 210° 150°
150 75
180° 180°

Fig. 9 Effect of flow rate on the resultant force for (a) e = 0.02 Fig. 10 Effect of whirl ratio on resultant force for (a) e = 0.02
and (b) e = 0.03. and (b) e = 0.03.

between Fx and these two variables (h, e) are m-order, there-

fore, the following approximate equation can be written as:
@S X N
Fxa ¼ b0 þ b1 h þ b2 e þ b3 h2 þ b4 he þ b5 e2 þ b6 h3 ¼ ðFx
Fxa Þ ¼ 0 ð3Þ
@b0 a¼1
þb7 h2 e þ b8 he2 þ b9 e3 þ   
þbk
m hm þ bk
mþ1 hm
1 e þ    þ bk
1 hem
1 þ bk em ð1Þ
@S X N

P k ¼ ðFx
Fxa Þjca ¼ 0 ð4Þ

¼ b0 þ bc jc @bc a¼1
c¼1
Furthermore, the matrix B consists of the coefficients can
where jc (c = 1, 2, . . ., k) is the variable corresponding to be obtained from Eq. (3) and Eq. (4). The segmented fitting
bc. models of Fx for five different eccentricity ratios (0.02, 0.04,
Once the sample values Fxa (a = 1, 2, . . ., N) are calculated, 0.06, 0.08 and 0.1) are listed Table 3.
where N  20 k. In order to obtain the coefficients, the sum of In order to verify the accuracy and reliability of polynomial
the squares of the residuals, written in Eq. (2), must be mini- fitting models, a group of simulated data, which is out of the
mized according to LSM: sample, is compared with the fitting data. The corresponding
X
N results are listed in Table 4. It is seen that the maximum and
S¼ ðFx
Fxa Þ2 minimum of the relative error are 5.73% and 1.37%, respec-
a¼1
tively, which completely satisfies the requirements of engineer-
X
N
  2
¼ Fx
b0 þ b1 h þ b2 e þ b3 h2 þ    þ bk
1 hem
1 þ bk em ð2Þ ing calculation. These results also imply that the proposed
a¼1 fitting models of Fx are accurate and feasible. Similarly, the
Through the differentiation analysis, Eqs. (3) and (4) can be other fitting models of fluid-induced forces can be obtained
obtained: based on the proposed method.
4254 W. Zhou et al.

Table 3 Segmented fitting models of Fx.

Circumferential Region Fitting model of Fx Correlation coefficient R2
351 6 h < 360
26:3 þ 3:73e
0:69e2
0:06e3 þ 0:02e4
0:001 e5 0.949
0 6 h < 51
0:87h þ 0:09h2
0:005h3 þ 0:0001h4
1:28E
6 h5
51 6 h < 111 1935:7 þ 3:57e þ 1:76e2
0:66e3 þ 0:08e4
0:003e5 0.965

128h þ 3:32h2
0:04h3 þ 0:0002h4
6:69E
7 h5
111 6 h < 171
1213:97 þ 3:71e þ 1:91e2
0:74 e3 þ 0:09e4
0:004e5 0.985
þ35:31h
0:362h2 þ 0:0016h3
2:26E
6 h4
171 6 h < 231 1:52 þ 2:54 e þ 1:52e2
0:84e3 þ 0:12e4 þ
0:005e5 0.893

3852h þ 39h2
0:19h3 þ 0:0005h4
4:85E
7 h5
231 6 h < 291
5835:82 þ 5:1 e
2:57e2 þ 0:15e3 þ 0:02e4
0:002e5 0.957
þ83:41h
0:42h2 þ 0:0008h3
5:36E
7 h4
291 6 h < 351
22719:5 þ 7:95e
5:12e2 þ 0:87e3
0:06e4 þ 0:001e5 0.969
þ270:67h
1:18h2 þ 0:002h3
1:53E
6 h4

(4). The segmented fitting models of fluid-induced force

Table 4 Segmentation errors of Fx.
obtained by LSM have good accuracy. The error range
h/° Simulated Fx/N Fitting Fx/N |4|/% between the fitting results and simulated results is 1.37%
43
7.87
8.32 5.73 to 5.73%. These results imply that the proposed models
96 3.97 3.75 5.56 provide a feasible tool to predict the fluid-induced force
152
6.82
6.96 2.06 and further calculation of the coupled rotor system.
201
25.21
24.54 2.68
270
48.93
48.26 1.37
334
43.77
44.52 1.72
Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing

financial interests or personal relationships that could have
5. Conclusion appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

In this paper, a novel compound whirl model of centrifugal Acknowledgements

pump impeller is established to investigate the fluid-induced
force. Compared with the present models, the proposed model
can better describe the actual motion and predict the inner
fluid-induced characteristics of impeller. The effects of eccen-
tricity ratio, flow rate and whirl ratio on fluid-induced force
are further analyzed based on the N-S equations and RNG
k-e turbulence model. Besides, the LSM is applied to obtain
the segmented fitting fluid-induced force. The main conclu-
sions are as follows:
(1). The calculated results obtained by the proposed model
are closer to the experimental results. The maximum
errors of head and efficiency are 1.42% and 1.82% when
e = 0.02. While the corresponding maximum errors are
2.31% and 4.62% when the eccentricity is ignored.
(2). With the increase of eccentricity ratio, the rotor–stator
interaction between the impeller and volute tongue
becomes stronger, which induces the larger fluctuation
range of fluid-induced force.
(3). The fluid-induced force component Fx is more sensitive
to the flow rate compared with Fy. The fluctuation
amplitude of Fx and Fy is smallest for the design flow
rate. In addition, the product of whirl ratio and the
numbers of local extremum is a constant. The fluctua-
tion range of fluid-induced force is obviously large at
half-frequency whirl due to the uneven distribution of
circumferential pressure.
This work was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant No. 51706087), the Project
funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant
No. 2018M642177), the Zhejiang Postdoctoral Preferential
Foundation (Grant No. zj2018009), the Open Research Sub-
ject of Key Laboratory of Fluid and Power Machinery (Xihua
University), Ministry of Education (Grant No. szjj2019-009)
and the Key Research and Development Program of Zhen-
jiang (Grant No. GY2018023).
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