Power and accessibility of the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is&nbsp;increasing yearly, according to the Moore’s law, for efficiently solve and/or optimize the governing equations of fluid mechanics within the anatomy of turbomachine components. This fact provides engineers access to an ocean of solutions for either design an efficient turbomachine from scratch or improve upon the performance of an already existing legacy device. Majority of the existing turbomachines, regardless of their type and level maturity, still have room for performance improvement. Amongst different performance improvement solutions, such as a radical design change in the rotary component/s or changing bearings, retrofitting one or more stationary components of an already operating legacy machine can be a boon for the service industry. However, the state of the art in this performance improvement process is to use the fundamentals of engineering and available CFD resources wisely. Since, there is a fine line between aimfully getting into the discussed ocean of solutions and catch the desired fish and/or get lost in the ocean, if not drown&nbsp;in it, and just hoping to catch a fish!In this work we will demonstrate how the ERI Inc.’s engineering team improved the efficiency of a multistage pump by about 10% at the first stage, which translated into a 3% increase in the overall pump efficiency; according to a set of engineering calculations and review of the archived test data for the legacy multistage pumps, it was hypothesized that the performance pain-point of the pump was inefficient performance of the first stage, due to the formation of a strong pre-swirl right before its inlet. The validity of this hypothesis then was confirmed via RANS CFD simulations of the flow field inside the pump impeller and inlet suction housing. Same CFD methodology was used to evaluate multiple engineering solutions to reduce the strength of the pre-swirl by modifying the inlet suction housing geometry. The obtained RANS CFD solutions guided the engineering team towards the most promising hardware modification proposal with two possible numerical solutions. The proposed geometrical modification of the inlet suction housing was implemented and tested on different multistage pumps. All of the test results validated one of the two obtained&nbsp;RANS CFD numerical solution, with higher efficiency improvement.The state of the art in this successful performance improvement process was first the on-point hypothesis development based on fundamentals of engineering and archived test data. Second, the proper RANS CFD methodology development to model/confirm the initial hypothesis and vet all possible engineering solutions to maximize the multistage pump efficiently and accurately. This can be a great example for various relevant turbomachinery industrial applications.

A Computational Fluid Dynamics (Cfd) Guided Design & Performance Enhancement of a Multistage Pump.

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/GT/GT2021/volume/84898

Turbo Expo 2021

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