Simulation of the Flow Condition Near the Intake of a Pump Sump Available to Purchase

It is known that the flow condition in the pump sump is very complicated, which usually performs as several types of vortex, water wave of free surface, vibration, noise, and etc. To make clear the flow condition experimentally and numerically is very important to develop the performance and operating stability of the pump station. As one of the projects with Hitachi Industries ltd. Co., Japan, the investigation experimentally on the internal flow condition of the pump sump has been carried out in Tsinghua University. In this paper, we introduce the simulation results, which can show more detail information near the intake of the pump sump. The simulation is focused on the area near the intake, together with the extension of up-stream and down-stream. The calculation research includes two parts: steady simulation and unsteady simulation by VOF model, which is provided by the commercial software of Fluent. Through the steady simulation, the distribution of free water surface (water height) near the intake, as well as the flow condition inside the intake, were obtained. Comparing with the experimental data, a good agreement was observed. After analyzing the unsteady calculation results by VOF, four stages of the development of air-entraining vortex, and the wave characteristic of free water surface, were obtained, which were in accord with the experiment visualizing.