Cavitating suppression of low specific speed centrifugal pump with gap drainage blades

This paper aims to clarify the cavitation suppression mechanism of the gap structure impeller based on the analysis of cavitation characteristics in a low specific speed centrifugal pump. In order to obtain reliable and consistent numerical results, some numerical considerations and modeling methodology were demonstrated and researched, and a check of the time and space resolution were also conducted. Hence the predicted cavitation performance of the two centrifugal pumps were investigated and compared with experimental results, and they were in qualitative agreement. It was confirmed that the new gap structure impeller has a very good characteristic of inhibiting cavitation, especially in large flow area, the present numerical method can effectively capture the major internal flow features in the centrifugal pump, through the comparison of the two type impeller flow fields, the cavitation suppression mechanism of the gap impeller may be the combination effects of the small vice blade's guiding flow and gap tunnel's auto-balancing of pressure.