Erosion Wear on Impeller of Double-Suction Centrifugal Pump due to Sediment Flow

Erosion wear of the centrifugal pump impeller are the key issues since its operating in sediment-laden flow. Experiment and numerical method are adopted in this study to investigate the erosion wear of the impeller in a double-suction pump in the Jingtai Yellow River Irrigation Project (JYRIP). Observation during operation combined with morphology study is carried out to verify erosion mechanisms at the different sections of the impeller blade. For numerical study, the Eulerian-Lagrangian approach combined with the Mclaury model is employed to predict the trajectories of the particles under different particle parameters. Also the effects of particle size and concentration on impeller erosion wear is studied. Numerical results are consistent with experimental data. The surface wear of the blade changes obviously from circular shape to strip shape in the direction from the Leading Edge (LE) to the Trailing Edge (TE), and the wear damage area increases correspondingly. Trajectories of larger particles are more uniform and tend to cause more severe erosion wear damage. The wear damage tends to be slow after the particle size increases to a certain extent under the same sediment concentration. Besides, erosion rate increases with an increase in sediment concentration, and the erosion rate of the suction side is greater than the pressure side at the same position of the blade surface. These results can offer a good reference for the design of wear resistance impeller of the double suction pump.