Description

The development of computational fluid dynamics has successfully contributed to the prediction of the flow field through pumps and the enhancement of their design. The present analysis studies the influence of simple and double-arc blade design methods in the flow field and in the efficiency of a centrifugal pump. The 1-d Pfleiderer’s approach based on empirical analytical equations is applied for the main
geometrical characteristics of the pump impeller. The numerical solution of the discretized 3-d, incompressible N-S equations over an unstructured grid is accomplished with a commercial CFD
finite-volume code. The characteristic performance curves are resulted through the calculation of the internal
flow field. For every blade design method, the pressure distribution of the pump is computed.