Effect of suction chamber baffles on pressure fluctuations in a low specific speed centrifugal pump

In order to study the effect of suction chamber baffles on hydraulic performance and unsteady characteristics in a low specific speed centrifugal pump, a model pump was design with enlarging flow mothed and four schemes of suction baffle, including no baffle (scheme 0), only one baffle in the suction (scheme 1), two baffles (scheme 2) and three baffles in the suction (scheme 3), were considered. Commercial code FLUENT was applied to simulate the flow of the pump. RNG k-epsilon turbulence model was adopted to handle with the turbulent flows in the pump. The sliding mesh technique was applied to take into account the impeller-volute interaction. Based on the simulation results, the hydraulic performance and pressure fluctuations were obtained and analyzed in detail. The head value of no baffle in the suction (scheme 0) is lower than that with baffles in the suction (scheme 1, scheme 2, scheme 3) at each condition point. Hump point in scheme 0 is at phi = 0.00596 (1.2 times Q(o)). The hump point in scheme 1, scheme 2, scheme 3 is at 0.8Q(o), 1.0Q(o), 1.0Q(o), respectively. The e value of scheme 1 is the smallest and that of scheme 0 is the largest in the four schemes. Six wave troughs are observed clearly at each monitoring point as the impeller rotates in a circle. Each time the impeller is turned 10 degrees, there are six obvious troughs around the impeller. With the rotation of the impeller, peak value of pressure fluctuations at blade passing frequency (BPF) is gradually decrease. At low flow (phi = 0.002383), the main frequency of pressure fluctuation at P36 and P1 under scheme 0, scheme 2 and scheme 3 is 295 Hz, which is corresponding to BPF. The pressure fluctuation levels are decreased by -2.72 %, -2.13 %, and -2.21 % respectively when the number of baffle in the suction is one, two, three, respectively. And decrease rate of pressure fluctuation (Delta C-p) on scheme 1 is maximum. It indicates that Adding baffles to the suction chamber is beneficial to reduce the amplitude of pressure pulsation at BPF in the volute. The best number of baffles in the suction is one. Based on scheme 1 simulation results, the prototype was manufactured and the performance experiments were carried out. A good agreement of the head and efficiency between numerical results and experimental results are observed.