EFFECTS OF TRAILING EDGE POSITION OF SPLITTER BLADE ON THE PRESSURE PULSATION IN A LOW SPECIFIC CENTRIFUGAL PUMP

A combination of experimental and numerical simulation was carried out to analyze influence of trailing edge position of splitter blade on the pressure fluctuation in low specific pumps with and without splitter blades under different flow rates. Performance experiments and PIV tests were performed to verify the results ofnumerical calculation. Several monitor points were placed in the calculation model pump to collect the pressure fluctuation signals, which were processed by Fast Fourier Transform to obtain the frequency results for further analysis. Besides, turbulence intensity and relative velocity distribution were also analyzed in regions of impeller and volute. The results showed that compared with prototype without splitter blade and the splitter blade schemes, when the trailing edge of splitter blade deviates to the suction side of main blade, the maximum pressure pulsation amplitudes are the lowest at different monitoring points of model pump. And the variation ofpressure pulsation amplitude in this scheme is relatively stable with the change offlow rates compared with other schemes. Furthermore, the splitter blade scheme with an appropriate trailing edge position has the lowest average turbulence intensity and optimal relative velocity distribution in main flow passage component. Therefore, this paper proposes a reference scheme of the trailing edge position of the splitter blade to effectively decrease predominate pressure pulsation amplitude.