Numerical Study of One Dimensional Pipe Flow Under Pump Cavitation Surge

Pump cavitation surge is highly coupled phenomenon with unsteady cavitation inside a pump and system dynamics of the pipe flow surrounding the pump. The piping system flow dynamics can be calculated under two kinds of assumptions; lumped parameter system (LPS) and distributed parameter system (DPS). In the lumped parameter system, the equations of motion of water columns inside pipes are calculated upstream and downstream of the pump. In the distributed parameter system, wave propagations along the pipes are calculated. In this study a simple system that consists of an upstream tank, an upstream pipe, a pump with cavitation, a downstream pipe and a downstream tank is analyzed by using two methods. Cavitation inside the pump is featured in the lumped parameters of cavitation compliance and mass flow gain factor. In the lumped parameter system case, equations of motion are calculated numerically by Runge-Kutta methods. In the distributed parameter system case, wave propagations are calculated by Method of Characteristics. From the comparison of two method results, appropriate criterion for practical piping system calculation is discussed.