In this study, a double volute centrifugal pump with relative low efficiency and high vibration is redesigned to improve the efficiency and reduce the unsteady radial forces with the aid of unsteady computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. The concept of entropy generation rate is applied to evaluate the magnitude and distribution of the loss generation in pumps and it is proved to be a useful technique for loss identification and subsequent redesign process. The local Euler head distribution (LEHD) can represent the energy growth from the blade leading edge (LE) to its trailing edge (TE) on constant span stream surface in a viscous flow field, and the LEHD is proposed to evaluate the flow field on constant span stream surfaces from hub to shroud. To investigate the unsteady internal flow of the centrifugal pump, the unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes equations (URANS) are solved with realizable k –ε turbulence model using the CFD code FLUENT. The impeller is redesigned with the same outlet diameter as the baseline pump. A two-step-form LEHD is recommended to suppress flow separation and secondary flow encountered in the baseline impeller in order to improve the efficiency. The splitter blades are added to improve the hydraulic performance and to reduce unsteady radial forces. The original double volute is substituted by a newly designed single volute one. The hydraulic efficiency of the centrifugal pump based on redesigned impeller with splitter blades and newly designed single volute is about 89.2%, a 3.2% higher than the baseline pump. The pressure fluctuation in the volute is significantly reduced, and the mean and maximum values of unsteady radial force are only 30% and 26.5% of the values for the baseline pump.

Modern pumps are designed to guarantee a sufficiently large operating range or to satisfy the performance requirements relative to more than one operating point. This study applies trailing-edge (TE) modification method based on TE rounding in the suction surface to widen the operating range of a mixed-flow pump. The effects of TE modification on the performance and internal flow of the mixed-flow pump are investigated through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. Local Euler head distribution is introduced to reveal the pattern of energy growth along the blade-aligned (BA) streamwise location. A pump model with TE modification is tested, and numerical results agree well with experimental data. The results show that TE modification significantly improves pump efficiency in the high flow rate region by more than 10%. The best pattern of normalized local Euler head distribution (NLEHD) is a convex curve of nearly constant growth rate. The overall heads are also improved, and the flow near the exit of the impeller exhibits better uniformity. This finding demonstrates that a small change in the TE of the impeller can influence flow structure in most areas of impeller channels and that the local Euler head distribution is closely related to pump efficiency. TE modification can effectively improve the performance of the mixed-flow pump with high flow rate.