Optimal Hydraulic Design and Numerical Simulation of Pumping Systems

Optimal hydraulic design is very important in the selection of pumping station design schemes. Through optimal hydraulic design of pumping system it is possible to generate better flow conditions for pump, to reduce hydraulic losses both in suction box and discharge passage and improve pumping system efficiency. Guiding principles and evaluation indexes for optimal hydraulic design of pumping system was proposed, and a case study was given to illustrate the effect of optimal design on the pumping system performances. The time-averaged three dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equations were closed by RNG turbulence model and SIMPLEC arithmetic was adopted to couple pressure and velocity fields. Computed results indicate that with the given water level data and within the limitations of civil construction dimensions, the flow conditions of pump in terms of bias angle and distribution uniformity of axial velocity are effectively improved through optimal design, and hydraulic losses of suction box and discharge passage are decreased by 0.115m and the pumping system efficiency are improved by 2.02%. The validity of optimal method by means of computational fluid dynamics is verified by a model pumping system test.