HYDRODYNAMIC OPTIMIZATION DESIGN OF LOW SOLIDITY VANED DIFFUSER FOR A CENTRIFUGAL PUMP USING GENETIC ALGORITHMS

This paper presents a hydrodynamic redesign of the conventional vaned diffuser into the low solidity vaned diffuser for the maximum static pressure recovery in a centrifugal pump. A Bezier curve representation for profile description was coupled with a blade-to-blade flow calculation and a real-coded genetic algorithm. A low solidity vaned diffuser of 0.89 in solidity was obtained through the present optimum design. Numerical analysis and experimental test were made to evaluate the hydrodynamic performance of the centrifugal pump with the designed low solidity vaned diffuser and original vaned diffuser. The obtained results demonstrate that the centrifugal pump with the optimized vaned diffuser has compact size compared with the original one while the performance requirements have been met.