The experimental investigation of axial-flow pump has been rapidly developed to meet the needs of South-to-North Water Diversion Project of China. Owing to the boundary conditions of hub, blade tip clearance, much of the physical phenomena and laws involved in this complex flow field can＇t be fully determined. The flow characteristics of the high efficiency axial-flow pump have been simulated by RNG k-e turbulence model and SIMPLEC arithmetic based on FLUENT software. Numerical results indicate that the data from the prediction show agreement with the experimental results, static pressure on pressure side of blades increases slightly at circumferential direction with radius increasing, and keep almost constant at the same radial while increasing gradually from inlet to exit on the suction side along flow direction at design conditions. The static pressure, total pressure and velocity at inlet, impeller outlet and vane outlet were measured by a five-hole probe, and a contrastive experiment was done to investigate the influence of hub leakage. The experimental results show that inlet flow is almost axial and the prerotation is very small at various conditions. The meridional velocity and circulation distribution are almost identical at impeller outlet at design conditions due to steady flow and high efficiency. The residual circulation exits at downstream of the guide vane, and the circumferential velocity component increases linearly from hub to tip at small flow rate conditions. Hub leakage in adjustable blades results in the decrease of the meridional velocity and circulation at blade exit near hub. The results of numerical simulation and experiments supply important flow structure information for the high-efficiency axial-flow pump.
SHI Weidong ZHANGDesheng GUAN Xingfan LENG Hongfei
