Improved Performance of Polypropylene Centrifugal Pump Using CFD

ABSTRACT The suction side of the pump typically consists of a single pipe of a nominal bore same as or greater than the delivery pipe. This arrangement may not be effective for higher capacity pumps used in the industry or public distribution system. The effort of this dissertation work would be to identify suitable configuration for the suction side of the Centrifugal Pump to enhance the utilization of the power; in other words, to maximize the discharge to power ratio. Quantitative techniques using CFD would be utilized to solve the problem for assessing the amount of discharge realized by a given configuration of the system with single or multiple channels for intake at the suction side. Mathematical treatment would be offered for addressing the preliminary investigation into the problem. ANSYS Fluent would be used to evaluate the variants for the intake manifold for determining the discharge and the pattern of flow of water through the manifold. Minimal pressure drop combined with a high value of discharge would be the criteria for assessment of the variants. Keywords: Pump, suction, optimization.