International Journal for Research in Engineering Application & Management (IJREAM)

ISSN : 2454-9150 Vol-04, Issue-11, Feb 2019

Experimental Investigation of High speed Centrifugal

pump with Circular casings of different throat area.
1
Harshal Prajapati, 2Muhammad Anas Shaikh, 3Usmangani Dyer
1, 2, 3
School of Engineering and Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Navrachana
University, Gujarat, India

Abstract: The paper is based on the effects of changes in throat area on the output of a pump running at higher speed.
The aim is to obtain higher head by decreasing the area of the casing and same size impeller with curved blades. The
results of both casings are compared to observe the changes in the performance of the pump with circular casing before
and after area reduction. The analysis is based on head, discharge and specific speed of the pump. The aim is to observe
the performance of the pump at higher speed than standard with circular casing of smaller throat area.

Keywords: Affinity laws, Circular casing, Discharge (Q), Head (H), Specific Speed (N s), Throat area.

I. INTRODUCTION For constant impeller diameter:

The industries look for an efficient pump but the aspect of Q1 N 1

efficiency varies with the application. Certain applications 
Q2 N 2
demand head and others discharge. The pump efficiency is
dependent on the specific speed which acts as a selection 2
H 1  N1 
criteria for a pump. It has been inferred from the
 
experiments performed in history that higher values of head H 2  N 2 
and discharge are obtained at lower specific speeds. As the
specific speed decreases, the size of the pump also needs to 3
P1  N1 
be altered to obtain the desired results.  
P2  N 2 
The reduction in the size of the pump makes it necessary to
change the impeller design also. The spiral angle for volute For constant shaft speed:
profile becomes small and not easy to manufacture, so,
3
instead we can go for circular casing which is easy to
Q1  D1 
 
Q2  D2 
manufacture and gives similar results. To obtain better
performance the throat area needs to be reduced to avoid
churning of fluid. In case of churning the fluid keeps
2
rotating in the casing due to bigger throat area and the H1  D1 
 
H 2  D2 
impeller is not able force out the fluid. This leads to
reduced head and discharge and ultimately very low
efficiency. A high speed motor is required to generate 5
enough pressure which is not obtained at standard speed in P1  D1 
 
circular casing. P2  D2 
The main element that is bringing about the changes in the
performance is the throat area. It is the space left between Q
the outer surface of impeller and the inner casing wall. H H Ns  N
(gH ) 3 / 4
Anderson in his book on centrifugal pumps, explains the
importance of throat area ratio as the factor responsible for Q is the discharge or volumetric flow rate (m3/Sec)
the whirl velocity, flow velocity and the relative velocity of
water (liquid being pumped). D is the impeller diameter (mm)

Before performing the tests, the performance was predicted N is the shaft rotational speed (rps)
using the affinity laws, a tool helpful in predicting the head H is the pressure or head developed (m)
discharge characteristics of a pump measured at different
and impeller diameter. P is the shaft power (kW)

427 | IJREAMV04I1147100 DOI : 10.18231/2454-9150.2019.0072 © 2019, IJREAM All Rights Reserved.

 International Journal for Research in Engineering Application & Management (IJREAM)
Ns is Specific speed (non-dimensional)
Fig. 1.1
(Circular casing with curved blades)
Fig. 1.2
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
The paper [1] identifies regimes and behaviors of the various
fluids in a typical horizontal single stage centrifugal pump
and improves performance by enhancing volute throat area.
The dots we needed to connect were low specific speed,
high head, and enhanced performance. The research [2]
describes CFD numerical simulation and performance tests
were adopted to study the model of the centrifugal pump to
analyze the hydraulic properties of the ultra-low specific
speed centrifugal pump. The next paper [3] discusses the
simulations and the experimental tests of centrifugal pump
with variable-pitch inducer are designed and carried out
under various rotational speed conditions. The various
rotational speed conditions can be brought about by
changing speed by using a variable frequency drive. In the
study [4] numerical simulation done by using a three-
dimensional Navier-stokes code with standard turbulence
model. From this it shows that the impeller passage at
design point is quite smooth and follows the curvature of
the blades. Next study [5] is based on the Navier-stokes
equation and Spalart-Allmaras model, discussing the
relative velocity distribution, pressure distribution and static
pressure rise at the design point. The experimental results
show that the back flow in the impeller has an important
influence on the performance of pump.
Further we needed to know in what range of specific speed
we can work in order to achieve higher performance. The
428 | IJREAMV04I1147100 DOI : 10.18231/2454-9150.2019.0072
ISSN : 2454-9150 Vol-04, Issue-11, Feb 2019
next research gives the idea about this. In a study [6] very
low specific speed range (ns<0.25) (ns<0.25), the efficiency
of the centrifugal pump designed by the conventional
method becomes remarkably low. Therefore, positive-
displacement pumps have been widely used for long.
However, due to some significant drawbacks of positive
displacement pumps, there is a trend of moving towards
high speed and small centrifugal pumps. The purpose of
this study is to investigate the internal flow characteristics
and its influence on the performance of a very low specific
speed centrifugal pump. Next study [7] claims that a small-
sized centrifugal pump is improved in its efficiency and
performance by having an impeller the height of which is
higher than theoretically calculated value and decreases in
the circumferential direction from the central portion, and
which has a flow channel with a narrow and constant width.
The paper [8] suggests the use of circular casing for low
specific speed applications and mentions the relation
between the specific speed and efficiency of pump. The
results show that a circular casing gives higher efficiency
than a spiral casing, and that radial thrust is considerably
small in both casings compared with that of ordinary
specific speed pump. On the basis of this review we went to
make a concentric casing of smaller throat with curved
blades impeller.
III. EXPERIMENTAL METHOD
The casing after being made concentric had inner diameter
as 128 mm. This was further reduced to 118mm by adding
material (polypropylene) to reduce the throat area.
The testing was done for three different speeds, 2900 rpm,
3600 rpm and 4000 rpm. There is increment in the values of
head and discharge as we increase the speed from 2900 rpm
to 3600 rpm and further to 4000 rpm. But the results for
2900 rpm and 3600 rpm were almost similar for both the
impellers ( diameter 128mm and 118mm ) with not much
significant difference in readings initially. A slight
difference was observed at the shut off point for both the
speeds and diameter which can be seen in the graphs ahead
in figure 2.1 and 2.2.
Fig. 2.1 graphical interpretation of Head and Discharge
versus Specific speed
© 2019, IJREAM All Rights Reserved.
 International Journal for Research in Engineering Application & Management (IJREAM)
Figure 2.1 and Figure 2.2 shows the graphical interpretation
of Head and Discharge versus Specific speed for concentric
casing arrangement inner diameter of 128mm and 118mm.
As shown in both graphs, trend of the head is increasing
towards right to left and Discharge is decreasing towards
right to left.
Fig. 2.3 extreme right of the graph head
So we get higher values of head at lower specific speeds as
claimed in the review.
Fig. 2.2 graphical interpretation of Head and Discharge
versus Specific speed
From these two graphs we can say that whenever head will
be increased, thus discharge will always decrease at a
respective specific speed.
As shown in figure 2 .3 at the extreme right of the graph
head will be noticed as 8 meters, discharge 1.84 x 10-3
m3/sec and specific speed 95.3 x 10-3 and at the extreme left
of the graph head will be noticed as 18 meters which is
called as a shut off head, thus discharge and specific will be
zero.
429 | IJREAMV04I1147100 DOI : 10.18231/2454-9150.2019.0072
ISSN : 2454-9150 Vol-04, Issue-11, Feb 2019
Fig. 2.4 extreme right of the graph head
In figure 2.4 at the extreme right of the graph head will be
noticed as 9 meters, discharge 1.84 x 10 -3 m3/sec and
specific speed 100 x 10-3 and at the extreme left of the
graph head will be noticed as 21 meters which is called as a
shut off head, thus discharge and specific will be zero.
By comparing both data it is shown that, after reduction of
the diameter or other hand that pump which has 118mm
inner diameter has a wider range of head as compared to
another pump i.e. inner diameter of 128mm.
IV. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
The results of the experiment performed show that the head
increases with the decrease in throat area and impeller
running at high speed. Results obtained for higher were
better so the readings for 4000 rpm are beings dicussed
further for the conclusion as the objective is to run the
pump higher speed for better performance.
Figure 3.1 shows that head range is between 8 to 17 meters
for casing diameter 128mm and head range is between 9 to
20 meters for casing diameter 118mm. So the original
diameter (128mm) casing gives a range of 9m head whereas
the modified casing of diameter 118mm shows a range of
11m head. So there is a significant rise in the head after
reduced throat area, it becomes a one of the factors for
achieving higher head when the pump is being run at high
speed.
The discharge as should, decreases with the decrease in
specific speed and increase in head. The starting and shut
off point values are same for both the casings but range
increases in the case of reduced size casing or the reduced
throat area. Hence, the application range also increases.
© 2019, IJREAM All Rights Reserved.
 International Journal for Research in Engineering Application & Management (IJREAM)
ISSN : 2454-9150 Vol-04, Issue-11, Feb 2019

[4] Cheah, K. W., et al. "Numerical flow simulation in a

centrifugal pump at design and off-design
conditions." International Journal of Rotating
Machinery 2007 (2007).
[5] Baoling, Cui, et al. "The flow simulation and
experimental study of low-specific-speed high-speed
complex centrifugal impellers." Chinese Journal of
Chemical Engineering 14.4 (2006): 435-441.
[6] Choi, Young-Do, Junichi Kurokawa, and Jun Matsui.
"Performance and internal flow characteristics of a
very low specific speed centrifugal pump." Journal of
fluids engineering128.2 (2006): 341-349.
[7] Irie, Masao. "Centrifugal pump with high efficiency
impeller." U.S. Patent No. 5,106,263. 21 Apr. 1992.
[8] Kagawa, Shusaku, et al. "Performance of very low
specific speed centrifugal pumps with circular
casing." Journal of Fluid Science and Technology 2.1
(2007): 130-138.

Fig. 3.1 head range is between 8 to 17 meters

Fig. 3.2 head range is between 8 to 17 meters

REFERENCES
[1] Khoeini, Davood, Alireza Riasi, and Ali Shahmoradi.
"Effects of Volute Throat Enlargement and Fluid
Viscosity on the Performance of an Over Hung
Centrifugal Pump." International Journal of Fluid
Machinery and Systems 10.1 (2017): 30-39.
[2] Jin, Jie, et al. "Design and analysis on hydraulic model
of the ultra-low specific-speed centrifugal
pump." Procedia Engineering 31 (2012): 110-114.
[3] Guo, Xiao-mei, et al. "Effects of rotational speeds on
the performance of a centrifugal pump with a variable-
pitch inducer." Journal of Hydrodynamics 29.5 (2017):
854-862.

430 | IJREAMV04I1147100 DOI : 10.18231/2454-9150.2019.0072 © 2019, IJREAM All Rights Reserved.