Computational Methods of Erosion Wear in Centrifugal Pump: A State-of-the-Art Review

Erosion wear of the centrifugal pump components is considered one of the principal hurdles for pumping and transporting the particle-fluid flow in the hydraulic system. Although the particles in the multiphase flow can behave like a continuum fluid at times, their irregular pattern cannot be predicted by traditional continuum-based modeling. The computational numerical methods have been extensively used in engineering, where its application is starting to achieve popularity in hydraulic pumping systems. As a result, the Discrete Phase Modeling (DPM) or the Discrete Element Method (DEM) integrated with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is considered a promising numerical technique that can model the multiphase flow by tracking the movement of each particle in the fluid flow accurately. Further, the CFD predicts and provides the characteristics of the fluid flow field via transport phenomena equations of mass, momentum, and energy. This work reviews the current strategies and the existing applications of the computational modeling approach for predicting and locating the erosion wear in the centrifugal pumps. It mainly represents three principal aspects: the concepts of a centrifugal pump with the erosion wear problem, the modeling approaches of particle-fluid motion including the turbulence and the wear models used in the hydraulic systems, and the computational methodologies for modeling the fluid-particle coupling and their applications for predicting the erosion wear in the centrifugal pumps. The existing published literature indicates that computational numerical modeling is a promising technique to predict and locate the erosion wear in the centrifugal pump components. The collected data could be benefiting from developing and optimizing the pump design and the operating conditions. The main findings are discussed and summarized as a part of the review, where future developments and challenges are highlighted.