CFD Analysis and Experimental Comparison of a Large Centrifugal Pump

The design of a large size centrifugal pump with conflictual requirements from customized specifications is a hard engineering challenge. Centrifugal pumps are the most commonly used in different industrial fields like power generation, oil & gas, chemical plants, desalination, pipeline, water treatment, agriculture, automotive, aerospace, and domestic applications. On the other hand, centrifugal pumps are a very complex type of turbomachines in which mechanical energy is converted into pressure energy by means of blades action and angular momentum change. To design and develop a centrifugal pump, it is very important to have a long experience and ability to predict the final performance with good accuracy. The design can be very complex because the flow in a centrifugal pump is a very complex turbulent, three dimensional and time-dependent flows. The primary purpose of this paper is to show a comparison between numerical analysis performed by means of a commercial code and the experimental results obtained during the testing phase of a very large in-line centrifugal pump, including suction casing - double suction impeller - double volute - discharge branch diffuser. The key focus will be in the comparison between test measurements and numerical results in term of overall performance (head, power and efficiency) as verification and validation of the CFD simulation for future applications.