Numerical Simulation of the

Dynamic Effects Due to

Impeller-Volute Interaction
José González
in a Centrifugal Pump

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Joaquı́n Fernández
Eduardo Blanco
Carlos Santolaria
Universidad de Oviedo,
Área de Mecánica de Fluidos,
Campus de Viesques,
33271 Gijón, Asturias, Spain
e-mail: aviados@correo.uniovi.es
This paper shows the capability of a numerical simulation in capturing the dynamic and
unsteady flow effects inside a centrifugal pump due to the impeller-volute interaction. The
object of the study is a commercial centrifugal water pump with backward curved blades,
which is built within a vaneless single tongue volute. For the numerical simulation, the
viscous Navier-Stokes equations are handled with an unsteady calculation and the sliding
mesh technique is applied to take into account the impeller-volute interaction. In keeping
the unsteady terms of the equations active it is possible to correctly simulate the effects of
the blade passage in front of the tongue and both the flow and pressure fluctuations
induced. Time averaged numerical results are compared with the experimental perfor-
mance curve and good agreement is found. The numerical flow analysis allows the study
of different variables which are always difficult to measure experimentally. The dynamic
variables obtained with the proposed numerical model are compared with the experimen-
tal data. In particular, the amplitude of the fluctuating pressure field at the blade passing
frequency is successfully captured by the model for a wide range of operating flow rates.
Therefore, the main achievement of the work is in providing the modeling possibilities for
the prediction of the dynamic interaction between the flow at the impeller exit and the
volute tongue. Such effects at the blade passing frequency appear to follow a clear flow
rate dependent spatial pattern around the volute. 关DOI: 10.1115/1.1457452兴

Introduction
Flow in centrifugal pumps produces a complex three-
dimensional phenomenon involving turbulence, secondary flows,
unsteadiness, etc. 共Brennen 关1兴兲. Moreover, the geometry is com-
plex and asymmetric due to the volute shape. The relative move-
ment between impeller and volute generates an unsteady interac-
tion which affects not only the overall pump performance 共flow
structure, losses兲, but is also responsible for pressure fluctuations.
Pressure fluctuations interact with the volute casing or even with
the circuit and give rise to dynamic effects 共mainly unsteady
forces兲 over the mechanical parts 共Adkins et al. 关2兴兲, which are
one of the most important sources of vibration and hydraulic noise
共Dong et al. 关3兴兲. Both experimental and numerical approaches
have been reported and have contributed to the understanding of
the highly complex flow interactions that occur in a centrifugal
pump.
Some authors 共Kaupert et al. 关4兴兲 have measured the unsteady
pressure field inside the impeller of a centrifugal pump using
piezoresistive pressure transducers and a telemetry system. They
found amplitudes particularly high at the trailing edge of the
blades 共pressure side兲 and relative values up to 35 percent of the
pump head at off-design conditions. Another important contribu-
tion to the understanding of the relation between unsteady flow
and mechanical problems was pinpointed by visualization 共Chu
et al. 关5兴兲. In that paper a PIV technique was used to observe the
influence of the blade passing in front of the volute tongue and the
unsteadiness generated.
For the present paper, the unsteady pressure fields at the blade
passing frequency for different operating conditions were mea-
sured by means of fast response piezo-electric transducers. Those
Contributed by the Fluids Engineering Division for publication in the JOURNAL
OF FLUIDS ENGINEERING. Manuscript received by the Fluids Engineering Division
July 1, 2001; revised manuscript received September 12, 2001. Associate Editor:
Y. Tsujimoto.
transducers, placed on the volute wall, were able to find a spatial
pattern as a function of the flow rate at the blade passing
frequency.
Although predictions on the unsteady flow field are always
valuable, numerical simulation of centrifugal pumps is not easy
due to the usual CFD difficulties: turbulence modeling, flow sepa-
ration, boundary layer, etc. 共Lakshminarayana 关6兴兲. Besides that,
there are also specific problems, as:
—Extremely complex geometry: a great number of cells is
needed and, due to skewness, usually unstructured grids give bet-
ter convergence than structured ones.
—Energy transfer is generated mainly by the centrifugal force
in the impeller. A cascade simulation is not valid and these force
source terms must be included in the equations of the moving
zone.
—The interaction between impeller and volute requires an un-
steady solution process to calculate the time dependent terms in
the equations. In addition, the blade position with respect to the
volute tongue must be taken into account. This can be partially
accomplished in a quasi-steady way: calculating the steady solu-
tion with different grid positions. Nonetheless, it is always much
better if the code is able to perform an unsteady flow calculation
at the same time that slides the impeller grid for each time step.
CFD has proven to be a very useful tool in the analysis of the
flow inside pumps, both in design and performance prediction.
Much research has been carried out in the last years: Croba et al.
关7兴 give an updated list of general selected papers while Denus
et al. 关8兴 give a more extended and specific bibliography. How-
ever, due to the difficulties of the task, most of these studies have
been carried out with strong simplifications of the problem either
in the geometry or in the flow characteristics. Research is slowly
tending toward more complete simulations 共see for example
Miner 关9兴兲 and the approach developed here follows this trend.
A numerical study of a centrifugal pump is used to capture the
effects due to the dynamic interaction between the flow leaving
the impeller and the volute tongue. Calculations have been per-
formed with a commercial software package, FLUENT®. This

348 Õ Vol. 124, JUNE 2002 Copyright © 2002 by ASME Transactions of the ASME
code uses the finite volume method and the 3D Navier-Stokes
equations are solved on an unstructured grid. The unsteady flow is
solved using a sliding mesh technique, which has been applied to
turbomachinery flows 共Croba et al. 关7兴兲.
The unsteady pressure fields at the blade passing frequency
obtained both experimentally and numerically are compared and a
high level of concordance is found for a large range of the oper-
ating flow regimes.
Some flow patterns are often difficult to measure directly and
cover a wide range of unsteady very important aspects, such as:
pressure changes in the volute for different flow rates; incidence at

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the leading edge of the blades with different flow conditions and
secondary flows generated in the volute due to the radial gap
change between the impeller and the tongue. An example of these
secondary flow patterns is also investigated.

Experimental Results Fig. 1 Pressure taps and angular reference around the volute
for unsteady measurements
The unsteady pressure signals recorded and analyzed by a FFT
procedure describe the dynamic behavior of the flow inside the
volute. In this case, the instantaneous pressure on the volute was wards, spectral analysis 共FFT, with Hanning window兲 of the sig-
measured. First, the experimental routines and measurements nals were performed. A detailed description of such arrangement
chain are described and afterwards a summary of the results is was described in Parrondo et al. 关13兴.
presented in this section.
Results at the Blade Passing Frequency. With the unsteady
Pump Facility and Measurements Chain. The pump was pressure signals measured as a function of the flow rate, different
tested in a hydraulic setup designed according to the international representations were made in order to draw conclusions. In par-
Standards 关10兴. In the circuit, water is pumped from and returned ticular, the study was centered on the fluctuation at the blade
to a 100 m3 reservoir. The flow rate is regulated by a set of passing frequency. With the amplitude and angular phase of that
butterfly valves located close to the reservoir discharge. The pump fluctuation, a filtered signal was recovered 共real signal filtered at
is a single axial suction and vaneless volute casing, Worthington the blade passing frequency兲. This signal produces a clear spatial
EWP-65-200, with seven impeller blades. pattern for each flow rate. Two representative distributions can be
The main dimensions of the pump tested and geometric ar- seen in Fig. 2, namely 20 percent of the nominal flow rate and the
rangements are presented in Table 1. More details about this
pumping facility and test apparatus for static measurements can be
found in González 关11兴. Flow rate uncertainties were found to be
always less than 2.5 percent 共confidence level of 95 percent兲. The
head and efficiency uncertainties were kept under 3 percent and
4 percent respectively, within the same confidence level. All un-
certainty analysis were carried out following the procedures pro-
posed in Kline 关12兴.
On the volute of that pump 共shroud side兲 36 pressure taps were
located 共one each 10 deg兲 in a circumference with R⫽107 mm
共see Fig. 1兲. Four Kistler-601 miniature fast-response piezo-
electric pressure transducers were consecutively installed in the 36
possible taps in order to measure the unsteady pressure signals.
Each transducer was connected to a charge amplifier, which pro-
duced a pressure measurement with an estimated combined uncer-
tainty of less than ⫾1.5 percent. An optic device provides a trig-
gering signal to start all the measurements in the same impeller
position. The resulting pressure signals, as well as the signal from
the tachometer could be digitalized and stored in a PC equipped
with a multi-channel analog-to-digital conversion card. After-

Table 1 Main characteristics of the tested pump

Fig. 2 Flow pattern at the blade passing frequency for two

different flow rates „0.2 Q N and Q N … as function of the circum-
ferential position „␸…

Journal of Fluids Engineering JUNE 2002, Vol. 124 Õ 349


Fig. 3 Sketch of the pump unstructured mesh. „Inlet and outlet
pipe portions are added.…
nominal flow rate (Q N ). In this figure, the nondimensional mag-
nitude p A /(1/2 ␳ U 22 ) is mapped as a function of the angular posi-
tion from the volute tongue 共␸兲 and for a time equal to the passage
of one blade channel. Bold arrows represent the angular position
of the seven blades.
The resulting distributions, shown in Fig. 2 characterize the
dynamic behavior of the impeller-tongue interactions for the dif-
ferent flow rates 共Parrondo et al. 关13兴兲. For the nominal flow rate,
a spatial periodic pattern is found for the pressure fluctuations 共at
any time兲. On the other hand, for off-design conditions a big dis-
turbance downstream of the tongue location 共␸⫽30 deg兲 can be
seen. Therefore, it can be observed how the tongue has no dy-
namic effect for flow rates near the nominal one, whereas it affects
quite severely the pressure fluctuations for off-design conditions.
The relative blade to tongue effect for a blade passing period is
also made visible.
Model Description and Computational Method
Geometry and Grid. A geometrical discretization of the cen-
trifugal pump is made for the numeric treatment. Structured hexa-
hedral cells are generated to define the inlet and outlet zones
共34883 cells and 44684 cells, respectively兲 while unstructured tet-
rahedral cells are used to define the impeller and volute 共162974
cells and 89712 cells, respectively兲. In the volute, a mesh refine-
ment zone is defined near the tongue. Once the geometry is de-
fined, the model is ready to be simulated. A view of the generated
grid can be seen in Fig. 3, while a detail of the impeller grid is
shown in Fig. 4.
350 Õ Vol. 124, JUNE 2002
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Fig. 4 Detail of the impeller mesh. „Only half of the mesh
points are made visible.…
The size of the resulting cells is not enough for a full boundary
layer simulation but it gives correct values for the pump perfor-
mance and allows the analysis the details of the main phenomena
involved.
Surfaces between inlet-impeller and impeller-volute define the
grid interfaces needed for the relative rotation of the impeller. The
sliding mesh technique provided by FLUENT allows that relative
motion of the impeller grid with respect to the inlet and the volute
during unsteady simulation. Grid faces do not need to be aligned
on both sides as an interpolating routine is defined 共a discussion
about this technique was presented in González 关11兴兲.
Mathematical Model. The code solves the fully 3D incom-
pressible Navier-Stokes equations, including the centrifugal force
source in the impeller and the unsteady terms.
Turbulence is simulated with the standard k-⑀ model. Although
grid size is not adequate to investigate local boundary layer vari-
ables, global ones are well captured. For such calculations, wall
functions, based on the logarithmic law, have been used. The time
dependent term scheme is second order, implicit. The pressure-
velocity coupling are calculated through the SIMPLEC algorithm.
Second order, upwind discretizations have been used for convec-
tion terms and central difference schemes for diffusion terms.
Boundary Conditions. The modeled boundary conditions are
the ones considered with more physical meaning for turbomachin-
ery flow simulations, that is, total pressure at the inlet and a vari-
able static pressure proportional to the kinetic energy at the outlet.
The flow rate is changed by modifying the static pressure to ki-
netic energy ratio at the outlet condition, which simulates different
closing positions of a valve. Some tests were carried out using a
fixed flow rate at the inlet. Although it provides a better stability
and faster convergence, this condition was found to be less physi-
cally correct, because the pressure fluctuations obtained were
quite different to the measured ones. Also, nonslip boundary con-
ditions have been imposed over the impeller blades and walls, the
volute casing and the inlet pipe wall.
Total pressure at the inlet and variable static pressure at the
outlet conditions allow simultaneous unsteady pressure and veloc-
ity fluctuations at the domain boundaries. Again, a constant veloc-
ity or pressure boundary condition would not be able to capture
both unsteady fluctuations at the same location. The influence of
the pump circuit itself has not been included in this simulation.
Studies about such interactions have been performed by Longatte
et al. 关14兴.
In the two grid interfaces between a stationary and moving
Transactions of the ASME
mesh, inlet-impeller and impeller-volute, the overlapping faces in
the interface zones are determined at each new time step. Fluxes
across each grid interface are calculated proportionally to the ar-
eas of the superposed faces. The pressure and velocity fluctuations
at the interface have been numerically tested and the sliding tech-
nique has proven its reliability, keeping the same accuracy levels
observed in any other mesh position.
Numerical Solution Control. The code was run in a cluster
of six Athlon-K7 共500 MHz兲 nodes. The time step used in the
unsteady calculation has been set to 2.94•10⫺4 seconds in order to

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get enough time resolution for the dynamic analysis 共Courant
number was kept below 2, which assures very good time accuracy
and numerical stability兲. The impeller grid movement is related
with this time step and the rotational speed imposed ( ␻
⫽169.65 rd/s), so a complete revolution is performed each 126
time steps.
The number of iterations has been adjusted to reduce the re-
sidual below an acceptable value in each time step. In particular,
the ratio between the sum of the residuals and the sum of the
fluxes for a given variable in all the cells is reduced to the value of
10⫺5 共five orders of magnitude兲. Initializing the unsteady calcula-
tion with the steady solution, over 5 impeller revolutions are nec-
essary to achieve the periodic unsteady solution convergence.
Intensive grid size dependence tests were carried out with sev-
eral grid spacing and the overall performance of the pump was the
same even with less than a half of the cells finally used for the
computations 共the variations observed in flow rate, head and effi-
ciency were kept under very reasonable values, 1 percent, 0.5 per-
cent, and 1.2 percent, respectively兲. Although the static values
change in that range, more detailed flow patterns, especially near
the walls, could be observed with increasing cell numbers. The
numerical accuracy for the pressure fluctuations was estimated to
be 0.001 共nondimensional values, that is pA divided by 1/2␳ U 22 兲.

Flow Study Using the Numerical Model

The possibilities of the numerical simulation in the study of the
flow inside a pump are wider than the experimental ones. In par-
ticular, results corresponding to the pressure distributions inside
the impeller and near-tongue region and the flow in the volute are
presented. The latter is very interesting not only for the prediction
of the losses during the pressure recovery 共diffusion兲 process for
which the volute is designed but also to characterize the secondary
flow pattern inside a pump.
Figure 5 shows a three dimensional view of the static pressure
共p兲 over the shroud, blades and part of the volute surface for the
nominal flow rate obtained with the numerical simulation. It can
be seen that pressure in the hub side is higher than in the shroud,
due to the flow turning from the axial to the radial direction. Also
Fig. 5 Static pressure contours „Pa… at nominal flow rate
Fig. 6 Helicity at various angular points around the volute in
mÕs2. „From volute tongue, each 90° in the rotating sense.…
the flow impact over the tongue varies from the center, where the
flow comes directly from the impeller, to the sides.
In Fig. 6, the helicity inside the volute at various angular posi-
tions around the volute is mapped for a fixed time instant. Helicity
is defined by the dot product of the vorticity and the velocity
vectors, that is: (ⵜ⫻uជ )•uជ . It provides information on the vortic-
ity aligned with the fluid stream. It has been plotted here looking
for the secondary flows. The surfaces are radial planes and two
counter-rotating vortices are captured. It can be seen that the vor-
tex centers are kept more or less at the same distance from the
impeller outlet all around the volute. Only small differences are
found at both sides of the center plane 共middle surface in the axis
direction兲.
Prior to the unsteady calculations, a comparison for both the
numerical and experimental performance curves for the tested
pump was executed. The result can be observed in Fig. 7. Both
data, experimental and numerical, are obtained after averaging the
unsteady values. Concerning the efficiency curves, a direct com-
parison is not possible. The numerical efficiency is calculated with
the torque values corresponding to the rotor inner surfaces, with-
out considering the disk friction losses and mechanical losses at
the bearings. On the other hand, the experiments use the shaft
torque to calculate the efficiency.
Four different flow rates are compared in Fig. 7, the nominal

Journal of Fluids Engineering JUNE 2002, Vol. 124 Õ 351


Fig. 7 Comparison of the performance curves. „Nondimen-
sional head and efficiency.…
and three off-design ones 共two higher and a lower one兲. The head
obtained in these points matches very well with the experimental
ones. The efficiency correspondence is also very good, if one
considered the unavoidable simplifications that are behind the nu-
merical simulation. More details on the flow structure analysis and
static comparison between numerical results and experimental
data were already presented in Blanco et al. 关15兴.
Comparison of the Fluctuating Fields
The results of the numerical simulation were recorded for the
same locations considered in the experiments. Pressure fluctua-
tions with time are compared in Fig. 8 using both techniques
共average value subtracted兲. This signal corresponds to a circum-
ferential position opposite to the tongue. Agreement between the
numerical and experimental data is fairly good, although the nu-
merical result is obtained for a complete revolution of the impeller
once the periodic state is achieved and the experimental signal is
an instantaneous measurement. These experimental results have
not been phase averaged and therefore include random fluctua-
tions.
As an example of the numerical instantaneous results, the static
pressure in the intersection between the center plane and a cylin-
der with R⫽107 mm, for different time steps with nominal flow
rate, is shown in Fig. 9. The displacement of the wake at the outlet
of the blades is clear in angular positions far from the tongue.
Approaching the tongue, the circumferential pressure distortion
Fig. 8 Pressure fluctuations in the volute wall in a angular
position opposite to the tongue at a radius RÄ107 mm
352 Õ Vol. 124, JUNE 2002
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Fig. 9 Unsteady pressure distributions around the impeller.
„Numerical results for the nominal flow rate.…
partly smooths out the wake. This has been generated by taking
from each time step the data around the volute some millimeters
above the impeller near the frontal case of the volute. If a fixed
abscissa 共angular position兲 is selected, the ordinate represents the
pressure change in time; if a fixed ordinate 共time instant兲 is cho-
sen, the abscissa shows the pressure around the volute at that
instant. The time range represented is only a blade passage. In this
figure it can be observed how the wakes advance around the vo-
lute. In such representation, the wave generated by the blades
共shown in Fig. 2兲 is superimposed to the average pressure distri-
bution around the volute. At the angular positions opposite to the
tongue 共␸ around 180 deg兲, the blade passage in front of the
tongue has little effect, while near the tongue, the blade wave is
more or less smoothed depending on the blade position with re-
spect to the tongue. This tendency depends strongly on the con-
sidered flow rate 共Fig. 9 corresponds to nominal conditions and
the pressure fluctuations are kept below 5 percent of the average
value of the static pressure for this flow rate兲.
Pressure Fluctuations Inside the Volute. Pressure at differ-
ent flow rates is obtained numerically in the 36 points at R
⫽107 mm, on the shroud wall of the volute, corresponding to the
same locations for which experimental data was available. After
recording the pressure at that points, FFT was performed and rel-
evant amplitudes and phases were obtained for the different fre-
quencies and particularly for the blade passing frequency. The
Fig. 10 Comparison of the pressure fluctuations at the blade
passing frequency for Q Ä0.5 Q N . Tongue at ␸Ä0 deg.
Transactions of the ASME

Fig. 11 Comparison of the pressure fluctuations at the blade
passing frequency for Q Ä0.7 Q N . Tongue at ␸Ä0 deg.
resulting pressure fluctuations at that frequency were properly
nondimensionalized 共using the dynamic head of the tangential
outlet velocity: 1/2␳ U 22 兲. And therefore, a comparison between
numerical and experimental results at the blade passing frequency
is possible. As examples, Figs. 10–14 show that comparisons in
function of the angular position for the flow rates corresponding to
0.5 Q N , 0.7 Q N , Q N , 1.3 Q N , and 1.5 Q N . For these figures, the
origin reference for the angles 共␸兲 is placed in the tongue angular
position 共as shown in Fig. 1兲.
As it can be observed, the agreement for nominal and higher
flow rates 共Figs. 12–14兲 is really good and the spatial amplitudes
pattern is well captured by the numerical model. The quadratic
mean difference divided by the mean value of the fluctuations is
around 20 percent 共this is a very good result when compared with
the average static pressure, which is around 100 times higher兲. For
low flow rates 共Figs. 10 and 11兲 more differences are found in the
comparison, especially in the near tongue region 共␸ between 10
and 100 deg兲. This effect means a limit for the numerical approach
in the prediction of the dynamic impeller-volute dynamic interac-
tion, giving always lower amplitudes than the measured ones.
There is also some discrepancy for high flow rates and positions
opposite to the tongue. Both effect could be possibly due to the
pump-piping circuit interaction, which is not considered in the
simulation.
Fig. 12 Comparison of the pressure fluctuations at the blade
passing frequency for Q Ä Q N . Tongue at ␸Ä0 deg.
Journal of Fluids Engineering
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Fig. 13 Comparison of the pressure fluctuations at the blade
passing frequency for Q Ä1.3 Q N . Tongue at ␸Ä0 deg.
Some differences have arisen in the comparison between the
numerical and experimental pressure fluctuations in the volute of
the tested centrifugal pump at the blade passing frequency, espe-
cially in the near tongue region for low flow rates. Nevertheless,
and generally speaking, it is clear 共Figs. 10–14兲 that the numerical
model developed would have been able to predict the main char-
acteristics of the dynamic impeller-volute interactions for a wide
flow rate range. On the other hand, those differences are not seen
in the performance curve prediction 共Fig. 7兲.
Resulting Forces. The fluctuating pressure field gives rise to
dynamic forces which can cause fatigue failure of the pump axis
共especially at off-design operating conditions兲. Once the pressure
predictions have been proven to be quite accurate, the numerical
model developed has shown its worth and can be used to calculate
these forces. An example of such calculation can be seen in Fig.
15 where both magnitude and phase 共relative to the horizontal
direction兲 of the total force are plotted against time for a flow rate
130 percent of the nominal one. From this total force, the fluctu-
ating terms can be obtained by subtracting the average value for a
blade passing period. In Fig. 16, a polar representation is chosen
for these terms, where the modulus and phase of the fluctuating
force 共with respect to the horizontal direction兲 can be obtained.
Fig. 14 Comparison of the pressure fluctuations at the blade
passing frequency for Q Ä1.5Q N . Tongue at ␸Ä0 deg.
JUNE 2002, Vol. 124 Õ 353

Fig. 15 Numerical calculation of the total force on the impeller
for a blade passing period and Q Ä1.3 Q N .
Fig. 16 Polar representation of the fluctuating force „numeri-
cal result…, Q Ä1.3 Q N . Force at the blade passing frequency.
Conclusions
The impeller-volute interaction in a centrifugal pump is suc-
cessfully predicted by a numerical model developed using a finite
volume commercial code. Both experiments and numerical pre-
diction show the presence of a spatial fluctuation pattern at the
blade passing frequency as function of the flow rate. That fre-
quency is predominant in what refers to the dynamic effects inside
the pump and conditions the possible limitations in what refers to
the use of the dynamic data for design purposes. Unsteady forces
have been calculated using the numerical results.
Considering the model results obtained, secondary flow pattern
354 Õ Vol. 124, JUNE 2002
in the volute was numerically analyzed through the helicity mag-
nitude, showing that the stronger effects of such secondary flow
are concentrated in radial positions close to the impeller exit.
The pressure fluctuations at the blade passing frequency reveal
the blade tongue interaction with the flow at the impeller outlet
plane. Such interaction clearly increases the fluctuation levels for
off-design conditions, which produces other effects already stud-
ied in the bibliography 共limiting operation ranges, increase of
losses, etc.兲.
The unsteady calculation combined with the sliding mesh tech-
nique has proven to be a useful tool to investigate the flow
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field inside a centrifugal pump including the dynamic effects. Al-
together, the main goal was to gain a deeper knowledge of the
flow dynamic variables inside a centrifugal pump 共pressure and
forces兲, which could be used in a design process. This has been
achieved.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the
Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnologı́a 共CICYT兲 under
Projects TAP99-0738-C02-02, entitled ‘‘Sistema de monitoriza-
ción en tiempo real por control remoto para caracterización de la
firma vibratoria de maquinaria industrial’’ and 1FD97-TAP1204-
C02-01 entitled ‘‘Desarrollo de un prototipo de cuba de estaño
para la fabricación de vidrio.’’
Nomenclature
b2 ⫽ impeller width at outlet
D2 ⫽ impeller diameter at outlet
f BP ⫽ blade passing frequency
H, H N ⫽ pump head and pump head at best efficiency point
共nominal兲
p, p A ⫽ pressure, pressure amplitude at the blade passing fre-
quency
Q, Q N ⫽ flow rate and flow rate at nominal point
R ⫽ radial coordinate
uជ ⫽ flow velocity
U2 ⫽ peripheral velocity at impeller outlet
␤2 ⫽ impeller blade angle 共outlet section兲
␾ ⫽ flow coefficient ␾ ⫽Q/( ␲ D 2 b 2 U 2 )
␳ ⫽ density of the fluid 共water in this paper兲
␸ ⫽ angular position around impeller
␻, ␻ S ⫽ rotating speed, specific speed ␻ S⫽ ␻ Q N 1/2/(gH N ) 3/4
␺ ⫽ head coefficient ␺ ⫽gH/(U 2 2 /2)
References
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关4兴 Kaupert, K. A., and Staubli, T., 1999, ‘‘The Unsteady Pressure Field in a High
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关5兴 Chu, S., Dong, R., and Katz, J., 1995, ‘‘Relationship Between Unsteady Flow,
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关6兴 Lakshminarayana, B., 1991, ‘‘An Assessment of Computational Fluid Dy-
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Flow in Centrifugal Pumps: Impeller and Volute Interaction,’’ Int. J. Numer.
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关11兴 González, J., 2000, ‘‘Modelización Numérica del Flujo no Estacionario en
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关14兴 Longatte, F., and Kueny, J. L., 1999, ‘‘Analysis of Rotor-Stator-Circuit Inter-
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关15兴 Blanco, E., Fernández, J., González, J., and Santolaria, C., 2000, ‘‘Numerical
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