NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF A CENTRIFUGAL PUMP WITH DIFFERENT ROTOR GEOMETRIES

The paper presents a comparative analysis of the operation of two variants of centrifugal pump rotors, a description of the main parameters, and the influence of the blade geometry on the performance characteristics obtained. Rotors have been designed using the arc and point method. Based on the developed 3D CAD models, the rotors were printed using the rapid prototyping method on a 3D printer in FFF (Fused Filament Fabrication) technology, in order to experimentally verify the performance, by placing them on the Armfield FM50 test stand. The analysis part of the CFD includes a fluid flow in Ansys Fluent. The process of creating a flow domain and generating a structural mesh was described, along with the definition of boundary conditions, the definition of physical conditions and the turbulence model. The distribution of pressures and velocities in the meridional sections is shown graphically. The chapter with the experimental analysis contains a description of the measuring stand and the methodology used. The results obtained made it possible to generate the characteristics, making it possible to compare the results received. The results allowed to note the influence of geometry on the behavior of the rotors during operation in the system and to indicate that the arc rotor gets a 7% higher head and 2% higher efficiency than the point method rotor, which gives the basis for its commercial use in industry.