Experimental study of the influence of flow passage subtle variation on mixed-flow pump performance

In the mixed-flow pump design, the shape of the flow passage can directly affect the flow capacity and the internal flow, thus influencing hydraulic performance, cavitation performance and operation stability of the mixed-flow pump. However, there is currently a lack of experimental research on the influence mechanism. Therefore, in order to analyze the effects of subtle variations of the flow passage on the mixed-flow pump performance, the frustum cone surface of the end part of inlet contraction flow passage of the mixed-flow pump is processed into a cylindrical surface and a test rig is built to carry out the hydraulic performance experiment. In this experiment, parameters, such as the head, the efficiency, and the shaft power, are measured, and the pressure fluctuation and the noise signal are also collected. The research results suggest that after processing the inlet flow passage, the head of the mixed-flow pump significantly goes down; the best efficiency of the mixed-flow pump drops by approximately 1.5%, the efficiency decreases more significantly under the large flow rate; the shaft power slightly increases under the large flow rate, slightly decreases under the small flow rate. In addition, the pressure fluctuation amplitudes on both the impeller inlet and the diffuser outlet increase significantly with more drastic pressure fluctuations and significantly lower stability of the internal flow of the mixed-flow pump. At the same time, the noise dramatically increases. Overall speaking, the subtle variation of the inlet flow passage leads to a significant change of the mixed-flow pump performance, thus suggesting a special attention to the optimization of flow passage. This paper investigates the influence of the flow passage variation on the mixed-flow pump performance by experiment, which will benefit the optimal design of the flow passage of the mixed-flow pump.