Effective Particle Size Representation for Erosion Wear in Centrifugal Pump Casings

For the purpose of Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) simulations, the broad particle size distribution (PSD) encountered in industrial slurries is classified into a discrete number of size classes. Since mono-size simulations consume much less computational time, especially in 3D simulations, it would be advantageous to determine an equivalent single particle size representation which yields the same wear distribution predictions as the multi-size simulations. This work extends the previous two-dimensional study [1], which was for a specific PSD slurry flow through three selected pumps, to determine an effective equivalent mono-size representation. The current study covers two-dimensional simulations over a wide range of pumps of varying sizes (40 pumps), 2 inlet concentrations and 4 different particle size distributions. Comparison is made between the multi-size wear prediction and different possible representative mono-size particle wear predictions. In addition, a comparison of multi-size and different mono-size results using three dimensional simulations is also shown for a typical slurry pump as a sample case to highlight that the conclusions drawn for two dimensional simulation could hold good for three dimensional simulations as well. It is observed that by using a mono-size equivalent, the computation time is 20–25% of the computation time for multi-size (6-particle) simulation.