Simulation of Flow Inside an Axial-Flow Pump With Adjustable Guide Vanes

The article describes numerical research of fluid flow inside an axial-flow pump that includes adjustable guide vanes, impeller and discharge channel. The guide vanes in the extreme position cut off the flow through the pump. The article presents the performance curves of the pump at different pitch angle of those guide vanes, as well as some corresponding flow patterns. Cavitation characteristics are also presented. The results were obtained using the CFD software tools CFX-BladeGenPlus, CFX-TASCflow and CFX-5. In the previous article, the authors have presented a comprehensive comparison of numerical results with available experimental results for a similar pump. As it was demonstrated, the performance curves of the pump depend strongly on the guide vanes pitch angle. Conclusions concerning these dependencies are drawn. A particular attention is paid for evaluation of performance of the pump with swirl flow downstream of it.