CENTRIFUGAL PUMP

Rotodynamic Pumps

A rotodynamic pump is a device in which mechanical energy is transferred from the rotor to the fluid by the dynamic action of fluid passing through it and this mechanical energy is stored in the fluid as static pressure head.

The energy of the fluid at the delivery end of the pump can be sensed from the static pressure of the fluid.The mechanical energy is stored as static pressure head in the fluid through centrifugal/relative head.
Rotodynamic pumps is essentially a turbine in reverse and are classified according to the main direction of fluid path through them like (i) radial flow or centrifugal, (ii) axial flow types.

Centrifugal Pumps These pumps employ centrifugal effects for increasing static pressure head of fluid at the delivery end. The centrifugal pump, by its principle, is converse of the Francis turbine. The flow is radially outward, and the hence the fluid gains in centrifugal head while flowing through it.

Because of certain inherent advantages,such as compactness, smooth and uniform flow, low initial cost and high efficiency even at low heads, centrifugal pumps are used in almost all pumping systems.

Net Head Developed by General Pumping System

. F

33.1 A general pumping system

W

ZF

Z1

Z2
ZA

Pumping is referred to a hydraulic system commonly implies to convey liquid from a low to a high reservoir. At any point in the system, the elevation or potential head is measured from a fixed reference datum line. The total head at any point comprises pressure head, velocity head and elevation head

HA= 0 + 0 + ZA
HB= HA hin

HC= HB- hf1 = P1/g + V12/2g + Z1

HD= P2/g + V22/2g + Z2 = HC+W HE = HD hf2 HF = HE- hexit = 0 + 0 + ZF

Where hin = entry loss at B hexit= exit loss at E hf1 = frictional head loss between B & C hf2 = frictional head loss between D & E W = Power supplied to pump H = HD HC = (P2/g P1/g) + (V22/2g V12/2g) + (Z2 Z1) Where H is the total fluid head developed by the pump due to power supplied to the pump (W) or manometric head as Z2= Z1 and V1 = V2 for very small elevation difference and same dimeter of suction and delivery pipe. HS = HF HA = Static head/Static lift i.e. the vertical height between the free surfaces of two reservoirs

H = HD HC = (HF + hf2 + hexit) (HA - hf1 - hin) = (HF - HA) +(hf1+ hf2 + hin + hexit) = HS + (hf1+ hf2 + hin + hexit) H = HS + Losses

e 33.2 Change of head in a pumping system

The centrifugal pump consists of three important parts: (i) the rotor, usually called as impeller, (ii) the diffuser ring and (iii) the volute casing . The impeller is a rotating solid disc with curved blades standing out vertically from the face of the disc. The impeller may be single sided or doublesided. A double sided impeller has a relatively small flow capacity

Figure 33.3 A centrifugal pump

The tips of the blades are sometimes covered by another flat disc to give shrouded blades otherwise the blade tips are left open and the casing of the pump itself forms the solid outer wall of the blade passages. The advantage of the shrouded blade is that flow is prevented from leaking across the blade tips from one passage to another.

(a) Single sided impeller (b) Double sided impeller

(c) Shrouded impeller

Function of Centrifugal Pump

As the impeller rotates, the fluid is drawn into the blade passage at the impeller eye through suction pipe due to creation of negetive pressure at the centre of the impeller. The inlet pipe is axial and therefore fluid enters the impeller with very little whirl or tangential component of velocity and flows outwards in the direction of the blades. The fluid receives energy from the impeller while flowing through it and is discharged with increased pressure and velocity into the casing. To convert the kinetic energy of fluid at the impeller outlet gradually into pressure energy, diffuser blades mounted on a diffuser ring are used.
The stationary blade passages so formed have an increasing cross-sectional area which reduces the flow velocity and hence increases the static pressure of the fluid.

Finally, the fluid moves from the diffuser blades into the volute casing which is a passage of gradually increasing crosssection to accommodate the increasing mass flow rate and also serves to reduce the velocity of fluid and to convert some of the velocity head into static head. Sometimes pumps have only volute casing without any diffuser.

The impeller of a centrifugal pump with the velocity triangles drawn at inlet and outlet. The blades are curved between the inlet and outlet radius. A particle of fluid moves along the broken curve.

A centrifugal pump rarely has any sort of guide vanes at inlet. The fluid therefore approaches the impeller without appreciable whirl and so the inlet angle of the blades is designed to produce a rightangled velocity triangle at inlet. At conditions other than those for which the impeller was designed, the direction of relative velocity does not coincide with that of a blade.

The work done is independent of the inlet radius. The difference in total head across the pump known as manometric head, is always less than the quantity because of the energy dissipated in eddies due to friction.

The ratio of manometric head H and the work head imparted by the rotor on the fluid (usually known as Euler head) is termed as manometric efficiency . It represents the effectiveness of the pump in increasing the total energy of the fluid from the energy given to it by the impeller.

(34.3)
The overall efficiency of a pump is defined as

(34.4)
where, Q is the volume flow rate of the fluid through the pump, and P is the shaft power, i.e. the input power to the shaft. The energy required at the shaft exceeds because of friction in the bearings and other mechanical parts. Thus a mechanical efficiency is defined as

(34.6)

Slip Factor
Under certain circumstances, the angle at which the fluid leaves the impeller may not be the same as the actual blade angle. This is due to a phenomenon known as fluid slip, which finally results in a reduction in the tangential component of fluid velocity at impeller outlet. The explanation for slip is given as follows. During flow of water through the impeller passage, due to its inertia, the water trapped between the impeller vanes is reluctant to move round the impeller and this result a pressure difference and hence velocity difference across the vanes with a higher static pressure and low velocity on the leading face of a vane and low static pressure and higher velocity on the trailing face. This difference of pressure across the vanes is called vane loading which increases with increase in the number of vanes.

This results in a circulation around the blade and a non-uniform velocity distribution at any radius. On the high pressure side the water leaves tangentially and on the low pressure side the water does not leave tangentially. The mean direction of flow at outlet, under this situation, changes from the blade angle at outlet to a different angle . Therefore the tangential velocity component at outlet is reduced to , as shown in the velocity triangles, and the difference is defined as the slip. The slip factor is defined as

With the application of slip factor , the work head imparted to the fluid (Euler head) becomes . The values of slip factor lie in the region of 0.9.

Amount of slip =Vw U2/g = (1- s) Vw U2/g = (1- s)Hth

Leading face Trailing face

.2 Slip and velocity in the impeller blade passage of a centrifugal pump

Losses in a Centrifugal Pump

Mechanical friction power loss due to friction between the fixed and rotating parts in the bearing. Disc friction power loss due to friction between the rotating faces of the impeller (or disc) and the liquid. Leakage and recirculation power loss. This is due to loss of liquid from the pump and recirculation of the liquid in the impeller. The pressure difference between impeller tip and eye can cause a recirculation of a small volume of liquid, thus reducing the flow rate at outlet of the impeller .

igure 34.3 Leakage and recirculation in a centrifugal pump

Characteristics of a Centrifugal Pump Considering no whirl component of velocity of water at entry to the impeller of a pump and considering the fluid to be frictionless, the theoretical head developed by the water in the pump is

From the outlet velocity triangle figure

where Q is rate of flow at impeller outlet and A is the flow area at the periphery of the impeller. As

(35.3

Where

For a given impeller running at a constant rotational speed and are constants, and therefore head and discharge Q bears a linear relationship shown by the curve I . If slip is taken into account, the theoretical head will be reduced to . .Moreover the slip will increase with the increase in flow rate Q . The effect of slip on head-discharge relationship is shown by the curve II. The shock losses at entry to the blades, and the friction losses in the flow passages have to be considered. At the design point the shock losses are zero since the fluid moves tangentially onto the blade, but on either side of the design point the head loss due to shock increases according to the relation
where is the off design flow rate and is a constant. Where is a constant

(35.5)

curves III and IV are the curves of losses in a centrifugal pump. By subtracting the sum of the losses from the head (curve-II), the curve V is obtained which represents the relationship of the actual head with the flow rate, and is known as headdischarge characteristic curve of the pump.

Effect of blade outlet angle

35.2 Outlet velocity triangles for different blade settings in a centrifugal pump

The head-discharge characteristic of a centrifugal pump depends (along with other parameters) on the outlet angle of the impeller blades which in turn depends on blade settings. Three types of blade settings are possible (i) the forward facing for which the blade curvature is in the direction of rotation (ii) radial, and (iii) backward facing for which the blade curvature is in a direction opposite to that of the impeller rotation,

From the outlet velocity triangles for all the cases, the relationship between and can be written as.

In case of forward facing blades negative and is more than

and hence

is

In case of back ward facing blades is positive and In case of radial blades and hence

and hence

(3

For the forward facing blades with will be negative and will be more than (35.3) For the backward facing blades with and hence is positive and For the radial blades with is zero and =

is negetive,

is positive will be less than (35.3) is zero and hence

(35.3)

e 35.3 Theoretical head-discharge characteristic curves of a centrifugal pump for different blade settings

Figure 35.4 Actual head-discharge and power-discharge characteristic curves of a centrifugal pump

For both radial and forward facing blades, the power is rising monotonically as the flow rate is increased. In the case of backward facing blades, the maximum efficiency occurs in the region of maximum power. If, for some reasons, Q increases beyond there occurs a decrease in power. Therefore the motor used to drive the pump at part load, but rated at the design point, may be safely used at the maximum power. This is known as self-limiting characteristic. In case of radial and forward-facing blades, if the pump motor is rated for maximum power, then it will be under utilized most of the time, resulting in an increased cost for the extra rating. Whereas, if a smaller motor is employed, rated at the design point, then if Q increases above the motor will be overloaded and may fail. It, therefore, becomes more difficult to decide on a choice of motor in pumps (radial and forward-facing blades).

Flow through Volute Chambers

Apart from frictional effects, no torque is applied to a fluid particle once it has left the impeller. The angular momentum of fluid is therefore constant if friction is neglected. Thus the fluid particles follow the path of a free vortex. In an ideal case, the radial velocity at the impeller outlet remains constant round the circumference. The combination of uniform radial velocity with the free vortex ( =constant) gives a pattern of spiral streamlines which should be matched by the shape of the volute. This is the most important feature of the design of a pump. At maximum efficiency, about 10 percent of the head generated by the impeller is usually lost in the volute.

Vanned Diffuser
A vanned diffuser converts the outlet kinetic energy from impeller to pressure energy of the fluid in a shorter length and with a higher efficiency. This is very advantageous where the size of the pump is important.

A ring of diffuser vanes surrounds the impeller at the outlet. The fluid leaving the impeller enters the diffuser vanes. The optimum number of vanes are fixed by a compromise between the diffusion and the frictional loss. The greater the number of vanes, the better is the diffusion (rise in static pressure by the reduction in flow velocity) but greater is the frictional loss.
Figure 36.1 A vanned diffuser of a centrifugal pump

Cavitation in centrifugal pumps

Cavitation is likely to occur at the inlet to the pump, since the pressure there is the minimum and is lower than the atmospheric pressure by an amount that equals the vertical height above which the pump is situated from the supply reservoir (known as sump) plus the velocity head and frictional losses in the suction pipe. Applying the Bernoulli's equation between the surface of the liquid in the sump and the entry to the impeller,

(36.1
where, is the absolute pressure at the impeller inlet and is the pressure at the liquid surface in the sump which is usually the atmospheric pressure, Zi is the vertical height of the impeller inlet from the liquid surface in the sump, is the head loss in the suction pipe. includes the losses occurring past these devices, in addition to losses caused by pipe friction and by bends in the pipe.

The net positive suction head 'NPSH' in case of a pump is defined as the available suction head (inclusive of both static and dynamic heads) at pump inlet above the head corresponding to vapor pressure at the inlet. Therefore,

Using

The Thomas cavitation parameter parameter are defined as

and critical cavitation

nd
For cavitation not to occur,

PUMPS IN PARALLEL
QA+ QB QA
A

PUMPS IN SERIES
Q HA Q HB Q H = HA+ HB

QB
B

HA= HB = H

Minimum Starting Speed of the Pump to Deliver the Water

When the pump is started, there will be no flow of water until the pressure difference in the impeller overcomes the manometric head. When the impeller is rotating without flow , the water is rotating in the impeller in forced vortex.

=1/2g[(V22-V12)+(U22-U12)+(Vr12-Vr22)]
At the starting time , the velocities of fluid is zero and the pressure head of the fluid is created due to centrifugal head.
The flow will commence if

1/2g(U22-U12) > H
At the starting time H = HS Putting U = DN/60 , the value of N is calculated

Specific speed
where:

Specific speed Ns , is a non-dimensional number, used to compare the performances of a number of different sized geometrical similar pumps operating under corresponding physical similarity conditions. It is defined as the speed in revolutions per minute at which a geometrically similar pumps of such size would operate under corresponding altered operating conditions as to deliver one m3 of liquid per second against a manometric head of 1 meter.

N
where: Ns = specific speed N is pump rotational speed Q = flowrate (m/s) at the point of best efficiency H = total head (m) per stage at the point of best efficiency g = acceleration due to gravity (m/s)

SIMILITUDE ANALYSIS OF PUMP

Variables involved in the analysis of pump are: D = Impeller diameter Q = volumetric flow rate through the pump N = rotational speed of impeller(rev/min.) H = Manometric / Total head of fluid created in the pump. = mass density of fluid = viscosity of fluid g = acceleration due to gravity (gH is taken as one parameter ) P = power transferred to the rotor By dimensional analysis four Pi-terms are obtained and these Pi-terms are adjusted to produce new Pi-terms with significance.

represents the condition for kinematic similarity, and is known as capacity coefficient , flowcoefficient or discharge coeff.

2 = gH/N2D2= Dimensionless head(head coefficient) 3 = P/ N3D5 = Dimensionless power/ Power Coeff. 4 =

=Specific Speed

5 = VD/ = Reynold Number = m gH p = m gH

= m VD

N
P

N2D2
P

N2D2 =
m P

=
m

VD P

N3D5

N3D5