Experimental investigations on pressure fluctuations and vibration of the impeller in a centrifugal pump with vaned diffusers

The pressure fluctuations acting on the impeller and the impeller vibration excited by the fluctuations were investigated in a centrifugal pump with several vaned diffusers. Firstly, the pressures both acting on the impeller and in the volute were measured simultaneously. It was demonstrated that both the volute static pressure and the pressure fluctuations on the impeller are uneven circumferentially (not uniform) under off-design operating conditions. At high flow rates, the pressure fluctuations are large in the front of the volute exit, where the static pressure is low. Secondly, the impeller vibration excited by the fluctuations was measured. It was found that resonance can be excited even when the resonance condition of rotor-stator interaction is not satisfied and sidebands occur in frequency spectra because of the circumferential unevenness of the fluctuations. Resonance can also be excited when a natural frequency of the impeller coincides with the frequencies of sidebands. Furthermore, the vibration wave is a traveling wave in the circumferential direction when resonance of a nodal diameter mode is excited, and the resonant frequency may depend on the traveling direction of the wave due to the inertia effect (added mass) of water.