Effects of meridional flow passage shape on hydraulic performance of mixed-flow pump impellers

During the process of designing the mixed-flow pump impeller, the meridional flow passage shape directly affects the obtained meridional flow field, which then has an influence on the three-dimensional impeller shape. However, the meridional flow passage shape is too complicated to be described by a simple formula for now. Therefore, reasonable parameter selection for the meridional flow passage is essential to the investigation. In order to explore the effects of the meridional flow passage shape on the impeller design and the hydraulic performance of the mixed-flow pump, the hub and shroud radius ratio (HSRR) of impeller and the outlet diffusion angle (ODA) of outlet zone are selected as the meridional flow passage parameters. 25 mixed-flow pump impellers, with specific speed of 496 under the design condition, are designed with various parameter combinations. Among these impellers, one with HSRR of 1.94 and ODA of 90° is selected to carry out the model test and the obtained experimental results are used to verify accuracies of the head and the hydraulic efficiency predicted by numerical simulation. Based on SIMPLE algorithm and standard k-ɛ two-equation turbulence model, the three-dimensional steady incompressible Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equations are solved and the effects of different parameters on hydraulic performance of mixed-flow pump impellers are analyzed. The analysis results demonstrate that there are optimal values of HSRR and ODA available, so the hydraulic performance and the internal flow of mixed-flow pumps can be improved by selecting appropriate values for the meridional flow passage parameters. The research on these two parameters, HSRR and ODA, has further illustrated influences of the meridional flow passage shape on the hydraulic performance of the mixed-flow pump, and is beneficial to improving the design of the mixed-flow pump impeller.