Experimental and Numerical Study on Vortical Structures and Their Dynamics in a Pump Sump

Research on water flow in a pump inlet sump is presented. The main effort has been devoted to the study of the vortical structures’ appearance and their behavior. The study was conducted in a dedicated model of the pump sump consisting of a rectangular tank 1272 × 542 × 550 mm3 with a vertical bellmouth inlet 240 mm in diameter and a close-circuit water loop. Both Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and experimental research methods have been applied. The advanced unsteady approach has been used for mathematical modeling to capture the flow-field dynamics. For experiments, the time-resolved Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) method has been utilized. The mathematical modeling has been validated against the obtained experimental data; the main vortex core circulation is captured within 3%, while the overall flow topology is validated qualitatively. Three types of vortical structures have been detected: surface vortices, wall-attached vortices and bottom vortex. The most intense and stable is the bottom vortex; the surface and wall-attached vortices are found to be of random nature, both in their appearance and topology; they appear intermittently in time with various topologies. The dominant bottom vortex is relatively steady with weak, low-frequency dynamics; typical frequencies are up to 1 Hz. The origin of the vorticity of all large vortical structures is identified in the pump propeller rotation.