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Abstract
This work is concerned with the study of the slip phenomenon in centrifugal pumps and the evaluation of its dependence
on the flow rate for a four-bladed pump. The finite volume method is used, and the impeller domain is represented by a
structured grid topology. The calculations assume a rotationally periodic boundary condition, while the frozen rotor
technique is used to model the interaction between the pump impeller and its surrounding volute casing. The simulation
uses an implicit time integration of the dynamic equations and is carried out using the commercial ANSYS CFX-solver.
Results from the simulation are found in reasonable agreement with the pump performance curve with a maximum
relative error of 4% in the range of flow coefficient from 0.8 to 1.2. The calculated values of the slip factor, as a function of
the flow rate, show good agreement with the Qius mathematical model while retaining the default value of the defined
shape factor F 0.52. In this particular study, the results show that although the slip factor improves with the increase of
either the number of blades or splitter length, the corresponding predicted hydraulic efficiency decreases due to the
increasing friction loss.
Keywords
Centrifugal pumps, turbomachinery flow, pump performance/efficiency, slip behavior/factor
Date received: 16 December 2014; accepted: 5 June 2015
Introduction
The slip phenomenon takes place in radial machines
as a result of the induced relative ow circulation, and
consequently, the uid becomes unable to faithfully
follow the guiding blades. The slip factor is a measure
of such ow deviation and is dened in terms of the
exit whirl velocity. Slip leads the ow to leave
the impeller with a mean relative angle 2 less than
the blade exit angle 20 , as shown in Figure 1. This
results in a signicant reduction in the work done on
the uid, and consequently, the pump head is dramatically inuenced
HE
Cu20 U2 U22
U2 Q
cot 20
gD2 b2
g
g
sin 20
U2
Z
Using the potential ow theory, Busemann2 developed a theoretical framework for the estimation of
the slip velocity and the calculation of the slip factor
for several blade angles and number of blades. His
results were plotted as a function of the inlet-tooutlet radius ratio and indicated constant slip behavior zone at small inlet-to-outlet radius ratios followed
by a sharp reduction in slip at higher values of the
inlet-to-outlet radius.
Later, Wiesner3 presented a general review of the
various prediction methods, developed for the calculation of basic slip factors, applicable for centrifugal
impellers. He concluded the rst part of his work by
supporting the validity of the classical theoretical
method of Busemann.2 Furthermore, he carefully
explored the Busemann experimental results and proposed the following simpler empirical expression for
slip factor estimation, while considering the impeller
exit velocity diagram, illustrated in Figure 1
p
sin 20
1
Z0:7
aecting the slip phenomenon such as the blade turning angle and the ow-induced wakes, and proposed a
model to calculate the magnitude of the recirculating
ow caused by the relative eddy. He argued that the
eddy-induced slip velocity is dependent on the blade
solidity (c=s2 , where c and s2 correspond to the chord
and pitch at the blade exit, respectively) and dened
the slip factor in terms of the normalized slip velocity,
following the work of Wiesner,3 as introduced in
equation (4). In his trial to unify the previously
derived formulas for the slip factor, Backstrom compared his results with other attempts to demonstrate
its feasible replacement; however, his model does not
show any dependence on the pump ow rate
1 1=1 5cos 20 0:5 c=s2
Memardezfouli and Nourbakhsh5 experimentally studied the slip factor in centrifugal pumps at dierent
ow rates. They compared their results using ve different industrial pumps with the theoretical slip factors modeled by Wiesner3 and Stodola and
Loewenstein.1 They found good agreement at the
pump best eciency point (BEP), whereas a signicant divergence was found at o-design conditions,
specically at low-ow rates operating regimes. They
further dened the local slip factor and illustrated its
nonuniform distribution in the blade-to-blade passage. A relative decrease in the local slip factor was
noticed, while moving across the streamlines from the
blade pressure side (PS) to the blade suction side (SS).
Although inconsistent, their values for the mean slip
factors at the impeller exit showed clear dependence
on the ow rates and the number of blades.
Further, Caridad and Kenyery6 carried out a 3D
computational uid dynamics (CFD) simulation
using the commercial CFX-solver package on ve different impellers of known geometries and specic
speeds. They were able to calculate the slip factor
for both single- and two-phase ow and found a similar linearly decreasing behavior for all slip curves with
the increase of the pump ow coecient. The predicted slip factor was reported to decrease as the
gas-void fraction increases from 10 to 17%. They further compared their slip results with values produced
by Wiesner3 and Stodola and Loewenstein1 correlations and showed discrepancies as large as 52%.
Qiu et al.7 were the rst to consider the inuence of
the variable pump ow rate in their derivation for a
unied slip factor. Qiu et al. distinguished the mechanism controlling the ow behavior, and thus the slip
factor, within the impeller at the impeller exit into
three components. The rst component represented
the radial Coriolis eect, evident for typical radial
impellers. The second contribution accounted for the
blade-turning rate (d=dm, where m represents the
meridional distance on the ZR plane) characterizing
the extra loading from the streamline curvature, while
the third component described the weak eect of the
Khalafallah et al.
dm 2
42 b2
1
Cm2
U2
For simulation and comparison purposes, they considered the geometry of Eckardt9 rotor A impeller.
(a)
(b)
Figure 2. The 2D schematic drawing (a) and the full 3D model (b) of the pump geometry.
followed by the Setup of the numerical model section, in which the implementation of the periodic
boundary condition is rst introduced. This section
also presents the model validation by comparing the
numerical values with the corresponding pump characteristic curve. In the Results section, an illustration of the predicted ow eld is presented, followed
by the slip factor evaluation and comparison with different mathematical models. The dependence of the
slip factor and the pumps hydraulic eciency on
the number of blades and splitter blades is nally
considered.
D2
D3
b2
177
360
397
29.5
124
29
Figure 3. (a) illustrates the impeller structured mesh versus the unstructured mesh of the volute casing, while plot (b) shows the
meshing and the imposed boundary conditions of the periodic domain of the impeller.
Khalafallah et al.
(a)
Results
In this section, the numerical slip results are presented
and compared with a few mathematical models, along
with a description of the ow behavior within the
impeller passage. In the following simulation runs,
spatial variations in the ow static pressures and
meridional velocities are presented, followed by a
detailed discussion of the eect of increasing the
number of blades and adding splitters on the evaluated slip as a function of the pump ow rate.
(b)
Figure 4. The pump head grid size dependence is presented in (a), while (b) refers to the model validation. The solid dots refer to
the present simulation results, while the solid line represents the pump characteristic curve.
Cm2
tan 20
Figure 6. The figure shows a contour plot of the flow absolute velocity, overlapped by the velocity vectors at BEP.
Figure 5. Contour plots of the meridional-velocity and the static-head distributions between two successive blades at three different radial locations. The normalized arc distance is the ratio of the circumferential distance to the local blade pitch. (a) Contours of
the meridional velocity, (b) meridional velocity profile, (c) contours of the static head, (d) static head profile.
Khalafallah et al.
Stodola
Backstrom
Eckardt
Qiu et al.
Wiesner
Present
0.7638
0.7275
0.8146
0.515
0.6288
0.58264
(a)
(b)
Figure 7. The figure shows the slip factor variation with the exit flow coefficient as compared to Wiesner and Qiu models (a) and
the change of the local slip factor over the blade pitch (b) at the impeller exit. Here, Z 4.
(a)
(b)
(c)
Figure 8. The variation of the slip factor as a function of the pump flow rate using a different number of blades is shown in (a),
whereas its dependence on the number of blades at the best efficiency point is presented in (b). Plot (c) shows the influence of the
addition of splitters while preserving the overall number of blades (main and splitter). The blue squares refer to the standard eightbladed impeller having no splitters.
between the insertion of a whole blade and the insertion of a splitter might be due to the blockage and the
skin friction eects that further deteriorates the performance of a whole blade as compared to a splitter.
Thus, we conclude that for the pump under consideration replacing half the full original blades with 50%
span splitters helps increase the pump head by at least
20% with minimal inuence in the pump hydraulic
eciency at the pumps BEP.
Conclusion
Numerical simulation of ow through a centrifugal
pump is carried out to study the behavior of the
ow through the impeller and to evaluate the slip
factor as function of the ow rate, the number of
blades, and the splitter length. It is shown that the
computational results are in good agreement with
the pumps performance curve in the neighborhood
of the BEP but is only in fair agreement with it near
the neighborhood of the low and high ow rates. The
overall slip factor is found to change linearly with the
ow coecient in a similar way as the expression by
Qiu et al.7 Reducing the tting parameter F given by
Qui et al. from 0.6 to its default value 0.52 gives very
good agreement. This indicates that the Qui et al. relation for estimating slip, although it is well accepted,
needs further investigation to evaluate the tting parameters correctly in its relations to the impeller
geometry.
Khalafallah et al.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
Figure 9. The pump head and hydraulic efficiency are plotted for a different number of blades and splitters lengths. In subplots (c)
and (d), the blue dots refer to the eight-bladed standard impeller having no splitters. The overall number of blades (main and splitter) is
preserved.
2. Busemann
A.
Das
Forderverhaltnis
radialer
Kreiselpumpen mit logarithmisch-spiraligen Schaufeln.
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558566.
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for slip factor in centrifugal impellers. J Turbomach
2005; 128: 110.
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investigation of slip factors in centrifugal pumps. Exp
Thermal Fluid Sci 2009; 33: 938945.
6. Caridad JA and Kenyery F. Slip factor for centrifugal
impellers under single and two-phase flow conditions.
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of a unified slip factor model for impellers at design and
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10