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Procedia Technology 23 (2016) 464 – 471

3rd International Conference on Innovations in Automation and Mechatronics Engineering,

ICIAME 2016

DESIGN OF BLADE OF MIXED FLOW PUMP IMPELLER

USING MEAN STREAM LINE METHOD

Divya Zindania, Apurba Kumar Royb and Kaushik Kumarc*

a
Research Scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra,Ranchi,835215,India
b,c
Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Birla Institute of Technology Mesra,Ranchi,835215,India

Abstract
Designing of mixed flow impeller blades is still a cumbersome task, mainly due to the great number of
geometric parameters. From the day of its invention various methods have been used for designing the same. Some
of the prominent methods are inverse time marching method, the pseudo-stream function method, Fourier expansion
singularity method, free vortex method, mean stream line theory method etc. All of these have their own merits and
demerits. In this work mean stream line theory has been used for the designing of blades. It has been observed that
this method, although used sparingly, gave results comparable to the other methods.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +91-9431597463; fax: +91-651-2275401.

E-mail address: kkumar@bitmesra.ac.in

© 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
© 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Selection
Peer-review and/or
under peer-review
responsibility of theunder responsibility
organizing committeeofofthe
ICIAME 2016 Committee of ICIAME 2016.
Organizing

Keywords: Mean Stream Line Method;Mixed Flow Pump; Blade; 3D Modelling

1. Introduction
A pump is a device, which converts mechanical energy to hydraulic energy. Based on the impeller
configuration and specific speed the pump is classified traditionally as radial flow, axial flow and mixed flow pump.
A mixed flow pump is a centrifugal type of pump which works on the rotary mechanism. In a Mixed flow pump
head is developed partially by centrifugal action and partially by lift of the vane on liquid. The liquid enters axially
and discharges in radial and axial direction. These pumps have got a wide range of application having been applied
to large scale liquid transfer tasks such as irrigation, flood control, dewatering and power station cooling systems.
Because mixed flow pumps are inherently versatile and reliable, increased efforts are being made to extend their

2212-0173 © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of ICIAME 2016
doi:10.1016/j.protcy.2016.03.051
 Divya Zindani et al. / Procedia Technology 23 (2016) 464 – 471 465

range. However, their design and performance prediction process is still a cumbersome task, mainly due to the great
number of geometric parameters.
Nomenclature
Ns Specific speed of the pump Q volumetric flow rate, m3/Kg
H Head of the pump, m D Inlet diameter at the tip, mm
Η Efficiency P Motor power ,Kw
Cm Meridional component, m/sec rm Mean radius of the blade ,mm
L Blade height from hub to tip, mm Δ(rwu) change in angular momentum per unit
mass
Δb radial width Δp.Δy Partial area of vane pressure diagram
C Actual Cord Length ,mm Λ Stagger angle ,degree
C’ Chord length, mm R Radius of curvature of camber line, mm
Θ Camber angle, degree W1 Resultant velocity at the inlet , m/sec
W2 Resultant velocity at the exit , m/sec α1 Blade inlet angle , degree
α2 Blade exit angle , degree Cθ2 Tangential component of absolute velocity
, m/sec
xm x coordinate on the mean stream line ym y coordinate on the mean stream line
T thickness of NACA 10C4 blade profile, xu x coordinate on upper surface of the
mm aerofoil
yu y coordinate on the upper surface of the xl x coordinate on lower surface of the
aerofoil aerofoil
yl y coordinate on the lower surface of the aerofoil
Over the period of time the design has been carried out according to the various templates. Wislicensus [1]
initiated the design of a mixed flow pump impeller. The modification of mixed flow pump impeller was carried out
by Myles [2]. Stepanoff [3] gave a design procedure for mixed flow pump impeller. Neumann [4], Gahlot and Nyiri
[5] have suggested the one-by-one design procedure for designing mixed flow pumps.
Few real 3D inverse design methods have been developed, for example the inverse time marching method [6],
the pseudo-stream function method [7], and the Fourier expansion singularity method [8].These methods are very
time-consuming and exhibit some difficulties in correlating the design parameters with the blade geometry (the first
two) or convergence problems (the latter).A quasi-3D method had also been proposed [9], which performs a blade-
to-blade solution and saves computer time by using only one representative hub-to-shroud surface. All the above
models are based on the inviscid simplified assumption. John [10] had recently developed a fast numerical method
for flow analysis and blade design of impellers .
The significant cost and time of the trial-and-error process by constructing and testing physical prototypes
reduces the profit margins of the pump manufacturers. For this reason, CFD analysis is currently being used in
hydrodynamic design for many different pump types [11-13]. Li et al. [14] carried out the optimum design using
CFD. They simulated the three-dimensional flow field of the whole flow passage of a mixed-flow pump by using
CFD software on the basis of Spalart-Allmaras turbulent model. The reason why the flow rate of this pump cannot
reach to the design requirements was found out. The flow simulation of a low-specific-speed high-speed centrifugal
pump was carried out by Jafarzadeh et al.[15]. A commercial CFD code was used to solve the governing equations
of the flow field. Chaudhari et al. [16] analyzed the mixed flow impeller with the help of CFD. Desai and Naik [17]
carried out optimum design on mixed flow pump impeller using CFD simulation.
Srivastava et al. [18] also designed the blade of the pump using free vortex theory. They had carried out the
design and stress analysis on mixed flow pump impeller blades having different positions in the meridional annulus.
The maximum Von Misses stress distribution was compared among the different blade positions.
Mingxiong et al. [19] presented a numerical investigation of hydrodynamic radial force of mixed-flow pump,
through validations and CFD simulations under several flow rates. It was concluded that the recirculation flow
pattern under part-load conditions has a significant influence on pressure fluctuation and hydrodynamic radial force.
Design of high efficiency turbomachinery blades with three dimensional prescribed surface curvature
distribution blade design method (CIRCLE) was carried by Korkianitis et al. [20]. Design by theoretical and CFD
analyses of a multi blade screw pump for a Liquid-cooled fast reactor was done by Ferrini et al. [21]. Fagbenro et al.
[22] carried out the computational modelling of windmill blades at high solidity. Laser direct deposition was used by
Wilson et al. [23] to remanufacture the turbine blades.
466 Divya Zindani et al. / Procedia Technology 23 (2016) 464 – 471

In this present work the blade section of the mixed flow pump impeller blade has been designed using the
mean stream line theory. The design has been carried out in solid modelling software. Radius of curvature of mean
stream line and also the chord length of blade section at the hub has been obtained

2. Pump Specifications
The blade section had been designed for a pump with a non dimensional specific speed of 1.998 rad/sec.
NQ 0.5
Ns ... (1)
H 0.75
Assuming,
D = 250 mm
η = 0.76
P = 15kW

3. Governing Equations
For obtaining velocity triangles, the calculation of the meridional velocity components as well as the peripheral
components of the absolute velocity of the fluid flow was done. The calculations were done using the following
governing equations. Calculation of chord length and radius of curvature of the camber line was also necessary for
further calculations

3.1 Meridional velocity component

Q
Cm ... (2)
23rm l
3.2 Peripheral component of velocity
'(rwu ) const .'b.('p'y ).r
... (3)
The partial area for the vane can be obtained for NACA 10C4 blade profile. In this work the variation of
pressure has been considered to be uniform throughout the vane.

3.3 Resultant velocity

C 2
m  wu2  ... (4)

3.4 Blade inlet & exit angles (Ref. Fig 1)

wu
tan D 1 ... (5)
Cm
wu 2  CT 2
tan D 2 ... (6)
Cm 2

Fig 1 Inlet velocity traingle Fig 2 Outlet velocity traingle

 Divya Zindani et al. / Procedia Technology 23 (2016) 464 – 471 467

3.5 Actual chord length

C'
C ...(7)
cos O
3.6 Radius of curvature of the blade camber line
C
R ... (8)
T
2 sin
2
Obtain the chord of length ‘C’ at stagger angle of ‘λ’ and the camber line with radius of curvature ‘R’ through the
method described by Shukla et al.[24].
4. Construction of Mean Stream Line
For obtaining the mean stream line following step wise procedure was adopted:
4.1 The chord OA obtained using equation (7) and ref. [21] at an stagger angle ‘λ’ was potted as shown in the fig 3

Fig 3 Camber line and the chord

4.2 The above obtained chord was divided into five equal intervals. Let the divisions meet the camber line at O1,
O2, O3, and O4 as shown in the Fig. 4.

Fig 4. Division of chord and the intersecting points on the camber line

4.3 The resultant velocities 'W1' (OB) and 'W2'(OC) (Fig 5), obtained using equations (2), (3) and (4) were plotted.
The blade inlet and exit angles were obtained from the velocity triangles and are 'α1' and 'α2' respectively.
(section 3.4)
468 Divya Zindani et al. / Procedia Technology 23 (2016) 464 – 471

Fig 5 Resultant velocities

4.4 The mean velocity vector Wm at an angle of αm was plotted. The end points of the resultant velocity vectors 'W 1
and 'W2' and that of the mean velocity vector resulted in the “mean velocity curve” as shown in fig 6.

Fig.6: Mean velocity curve

4.5 The change in resultant velocity vector (ΔW=W 1-W2) was determined and divided into five equally spaced
intervals. The division intersecting the mean velocity curve will give the stations 0.2, 0.4 etc indicating the end
points of various resultant velocity vectors (W 3,W4 etc…) across the blade section (Fig 7)

Table 1. Magnitude of resultant velocities and their respective angles

Resultant velocity (m/s) α(Degree)
8.46 65.39
8.14 67.33
7.83 66.60
7.62 65.81
7.21 64.95
6.90 64.00
 Divya Zindani et al. / Procedia Technology 23 (2016) 464 – 471 469

Fig 7. Resultant velocity vectors

4.6 The mean stream line (shown in blue) 0, 0.2, 0.4, etc was then obtained graphically by the condition that its
direction at the points 0, 0.2, 0.4, etc is equal to the velocity vectors drawn to the corresponding points on the
mean velocity curve (Fig. 8)

Fig 8 Mean stream line and the chord line

5. Construction of 3D Model
The coordinates of the points on the mean stream line were obtained. After getting the coordinates on the mean
stream line, the coordinates on the upper and lower surface of the aerofoil were easily determined with the help of
following equation:
t t t t
xu xm  sin I , yu ym  cosI , xl xm  sin I , yl ym  cosI ... (9)
2 2 2 2
C
 xm
Where, I sin 2
1

R
The thickness‘t’ as a percentage of chord length has been tabulated in the table 2
470 Divya Zindani et al. / Procedia Technology 23 (2016) 464 – 471

Table 2. Thickness as a percentage of chord length

10C4 Blade Profile Data Modelled blade profile data
Distance from the Distance from leading
Thickness Thickness
leading edge edge
0 0 0 0
1.25 3.30 2.16 5.71
2.50 4.54 4.32 7.85
5 6.16 8.65 10.66
7.50 7.24 12.98 12.53
10 8.04 17.31 13.91
15 9.10 25.96 15.75
20 9.66 34.62 16.72
30 10 51.93 17.31
40 9.78 69.24 16.93
50 9.14 86.55 15.82
60 8.01 103.86 13.86
70 6.74 121.17 11.66
80 5.08 138.48 8.79
90 3.20 155.79 5.53
95 2.12 164.45 3.66
100 0 173.11 0

6. Result
After obtaining the mean stream line (section 4) and the coordinates of the upper and lower surface of the blade
section using equations (9) of section 5, the completed blade profile was obtained as in fig 9
The 3D model was then obtained as shown in the fig 10.

Fig 9: The 2D model of the blade section at the hub of the impeller Fig 10: 3D Model of the blade section at
the hub of the impeller

The above procedure was followed to obtain the blade sections of the impeller blade and thus the 3D model of
the entire blade.

7. Conclusion
This method, which is sparingly used for the designing of the impeller blades, has given results quite at par
with the other modes of designing. The mean stream line method when extended to other sections of the blade
resulted in the complete blade profile. The blade that can be analyzed for von misses stresses using any of the
analysis software. The chord length of the modeled blade section was found to be 173.11mm and the radius of
curvature of the mean stream line was found out to be 1642mm.

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 Divya Zindani et al. / Procedia Technology 23 (2016) 464 – 471 471

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