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doi: 10.14355/sas.2016.05.002
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sehgals@pu.ac.in
Abstract
In this paper, the design of an existing sump of a hydraulic pumping system has been analyzed in order to evaluate its
performance. Computational fluid dynamics based analysis of the flow pattern inside the sump has been carried out using
ANSYS software. Maximum value of the swirl angle has been evaluated for water flow inside the sump. It is observed that the
maximum value overshoots the permissible limit as per hydraulic standards. The study highlights the importance of evaluating
the maximum swirl angle in sump design.
Keywords
Computational Fluid Dynamics; Sump Design; Hydraulic Pumping System; Swirl Angle
Introduction
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) expertise helps in improving the product design and its working behaviour
(Anderson, 1995; Dupont & Cugal, 2006). CFD can be used in numerical simulation of three dimensional turbulent
flows in the multi-intakes sump of any pump station (Chen & Guo, 2007; Chuang & Hsiao, 2011). Sump is an
important part of a hydraulic pumping system. It is a reservoir or a large storage area in which liquid is stored for
its quick and easy access. Sump is an intermediary between the source and the sink of pumping system.
Fig. 1 shows the two inlet domains of the sump from which the water enters into the basin. Water then flows
towards the four separate areas, wherein suction pipes are installed for enabling quick movement of water towards
the inlet of the pump. The pumping system under consideration consists of three main pumps and one auxiliary
pump. This system has been modeled using Solidworks software. The solid model is then imported into ANSYS
workbench for further CFD based analysis (ANSYS , 2003). In this work, simulation studies have been carried out
to investigate the nature of fluid flow from inlet to outlet of the sump. Outlet domain of the sump has been drawn
in Fig. 2. From here on, water goes into the pump.
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Problem Formulation
This paper discusses about the CFD based design of sump of a particular hydraulic pumping system. The sump in
the proposed system has two sluice gates as shown in Fig. 1 . The sump contains four pump inlets, out of which,
three are the main inlets while the fourth is an auxiliary inlet, which is used only during emergency.
According to the sump geometry, water is entering from cooling towers through two sluice gates. These two water
streams meet in the fore bay and create non-uniformity. Due to this, the whole width of the fore bay is not fully
utilized and a lot of recirculation zone and dead zone can be seen clearly during analysis. This non-uniformity of
flow continues in the pump chamber, which results in high swirl angles in the pump. Since the back wall clearance
behind the pump is slightly more, the water gets this extra space for recirculation.
The quantitative results are given in the form of swirl angles. The maximum swirl angle is found 17.6 which is
much above the acceptable limit of 5 as per Hydraulic Institute Standards. In order to have uniform flow
distribution in the fore bay and to minimize the swirl angles, the sump geometry needs modification.
Modeling and Meshing
A 3D model similar to the original sump is created followed by surface meshing, in order to perform further
analysis. Both these steps are paramount during the process as a flaw in the design would lead to a variation to the
expected results. A step by step process flow is followed to attain a final meshed surface.
Design of Sump Geometry
The geometry of the sump of Fig. 1 shows the water domain which is the active domain in our study. A wireframe
model shown in Fig. 3 shows that the suction pipes are tapered from the bottom, this is done to assure smooth
entry of water. The diameter of the three main inlets is 700mm and that of the auxiliary pipe is 300mm.
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The swirl angle has been calculated in two steps, the first one is the input formulae, and the second is running
those formulae, where the software picks up the input velocities and compiles it to give the required result. There
are three directions u, v and w which correspond to the velocities in the x, y and z direction. The first step is to
calculate the velocity u in the user defined plane named Swirl1. These velocities have been evaluated to be 3.41,
1.04 and -0.18 m/s respectively. The Swirl angle obtained using ANSYS software is 17.2 degrees. This angle is much
higher than the prescribed limit of 5. Thus, the study shows that sump design needs to be modified in order to
have a better fluid flow pattern.
Conclusions
The design of an existing sump system has been analyzed using CFD feature of ANSYS. Results show that the
value of the swirl angle is way beyond the permissible limit , which can be attributed to the fact that there was
recirculation and irregular flow during the entry to the suction pipes and high turbulence. Hence, it is concluded
that the design of the sump system needs to be modified in order to have more efficient pumping system.
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REFERENCES
[1]
Anderson, J. David. Computational fluid dynamics: the basics with applications. USA: McGraw-Hill, Inc, 1995.
[2]
ANSYS . Users Manual of ANSYS, Revision 8.0. USA: Swanson Analysis System, 2003.
[3]
Chen, Hong-xun and Guo, Jia-hong. Numerical simulation of 3-D turbulent flow in the multi-intakes sump of the pump
station. Journal of Hydrodynamics, 19(1), (2007): 4247.
[4]
Chuang, Wei Liang and Hsiao, Shih Chun. Three-dimensional numerical simulation of intake model with cross flow.
Journal of Hydrodynamics, 23(3), (2011): 314324.
[5]
Dupont, Philippe and Cugal, Mike. CFD expertise improves product design and operational behaviour. World Pumps,
(2006), 2225.
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