Influence of U-tube type casing treatment on pressure fluctuations of a centrifugal pump at low flow conditions

The existence of pressure pulsations greatly increases the vibration and noise of pumps and harms their service life. In this paper, a casing treatment was employed to explore its impact on the pressure pulsations. A U-tube type groove was created at the inlet end-wall of a centrifugal pump and front cover of the impeller to connect the impeller with the inlet pipe by passing impeller leading edge. An unsteady numerical investigation was launched of the pump with and without this casing treatment, to study its influence on the pressure pulsations inside the pump and the mechanisms behind. The numerical results of the pump without casing treatment was first compared with the test performance of the pump to validate the numerical method, and gave excellent agreements with the test results. The CFD results also showed that the casing treatment increases the head coefficient and efficiency of the pump. Pressure pulsations at a reduced mass flow condition were studied by monitoring unsteady pressure signals generated by the CFD at various locations inside the pump. A Fast Fourier transform (FFT) was performed on the signals. The pump employs a double tongues volute with each tongue covering 180 degrees circumference. However, the two tongues are not identical with regard to the discharge of the pump. These geometric features of the volute and the pump's operating condition generate several pressure pulsations in the frequencies of fn, 2fn, 3fn in the original pump. Due to the circumferential unifying capability of the casing treatment and its improvement to the impeller flow, these pulsations at impeller inlet are weakened or disappear when the U-tube is present. The pressure pulsation inside the impeller is less affected by the treatment. The 3fn pulsation at volute tongues also decreases or disappears for the same reasons, but fn pulsation increases slightly and this is due to the improved pressure recovery in the volute by the treatment which increases the pressure difference across one of the volute tongues. The unsteady radial force of the impeller exerting on journal bearings becomes more uniform and smaller when the casing treatment is employed.