Pressure and Flow Rate Fluctuations in Single- and Two-Blade Pumps

A comparative study on the highly unsteady flow field in single- and two-blade pumps is performed. Stationary pump characteristics, as well as pressure and flow rate fluctuations, are presented. Wall pressure fluctuations were measured in the suction and pressure pipe as well as at several locations within the volute casing by piezoresistive transducers. Flow rate fluctuations were evaluated by a recently presented measurement system based on an electromagnetic flowmeter (Melzer et al. 2020, “A System for Time-Fluctuating Flow Rate Measurements in a Single-Blade Pump Circuit,” Flow Meas. Instrum., 71, p. 101675). Measurements were accompanied by three-dimensional (3D) flow simulations with the open-source cfd software foam-extend. A thorough grid study and validation of the simulation were performed. By a complementary analysis of measurement and simulation results, distinctive differences between both pump types were observed, e.g., flow rate and pressure fluctuation magnitudes are significantly higher in the single-blade pump. In relation to the respective mean values, flow rate fluctuation magnitudes are one order lower than pressure fluctuation magnitudes for both pumps. For the two-blade pump, fluctuations attenuate toward overload irrespective of the particular pump circuit, while they rise for the single-blade pump. 3D simulation results yield detailed insight into the spatially and temporally resolved impeller–volute interaction and reveal that the single-blade impeller pushes a high-pressure flow region forward in a way as a positive displacement pump, resulting in an inherently fluctuating velocity and pressure distribution within the volute.