Analysis of unsteady flow and pressure pulsation of multistage centrifugal pump based on actual size

In this paper, the unsteady flow and pressure pulsation in 11-stage centrifugal pump were analyzed based on large eddy simulation. The performances from the numerical simulation agreed with the ones from the experiment. The numerical results show that large pressure gradient area appears on trailing edge of blade pressure surface, and large vorticity intensity area appears on blade suction surface and trailing edge. The vortexes in the impeller passage decrease obviously with the increase of flow rate from 0.4 Q to 1.2 Q. As the stage increase, there is a local high pressure area at the tongue and it affects the fluid backflow. The main frequency of the pulsation at the impeller inlet is the blade passing frequency (fBPF), and the main frequency at the impeller outlet and the interface is 2 fBPF. Due to interstage interference, the main frequency of the second impeller includes blade passing frequency of the first stage impeller (5 fn) and its own blade passing frequency (7 fn). With the increase of the stages, the rule of pulsation gradually tends to be consistent.