Pump Performance Improvement Using AxSTREAM ION

As pumps have numerous uses, they constitute a significant part of energy consuming equipment.  Therefore, pump efficiency plays a significant role in energy savings and operating cost. The design of a centrifugal pump is more challenging to reduce overall cost of the pump and increasing demand for higher performance.

Redesign Pump with Smooth Beta and Theta Distributions
Figure 1. Centrifugal Pump in AxSTREAM

There are two traditional approaches to design a pump for new requirements. One approach is to redesign or modify an existing impeller of centrifugal pump for increasing flow rate/head and efficiency. The modification will also involve selection of different geometric parameters and then optimizing them with the goal of performance improvement in terms of efficiency, increase the head, reduce cross flow and secondary incidence flows. The other approach is to design a pump from the preliminary stage to meet the desired design objectives. Most of the time, the designer knows what they need to achieve (performance target) but the challenge is in how to achieve this target within the given constraints (geometry, cost, manufacturability etc.).

Presently, SoftInWay is working on the design of a pump based on a known or given performance target by using an integrated approach automated with minimal human intervention. Both approaches described above are used to understand which is more effective in terms of resource, time, effort and meeting the performance objectives.

In the first case, the pump impeller of an existing design is selected and optimized to meet the target performance. In the second case, the target performance curve is specified and a design is obtained based geometric constraints from a scratch. In both cases, the simulation is performed using AxSTREAM® integrated within the AxSTREAM ION™ platform. Figure 1 shows the flow chart generated to perform calculation for the second case using AxSTREAM ION™.

Flow Chart to Obtain Pump Design from Preliminary Stage
Figure 2. Flow Chart to Obtain Pump Design from Preliminary Stage (Scratch) in AxSTREAM ION™

An existing pump design was optimized conventionally by varying a few geometric parameters and the new pump geometry was obtained (Optimized Pump) to meet the target performance. The optimized design performance map was given as a target map, and the new pump design obtained from scratch (Preliminary Stage) which gives better performance than the target performance map. The goal was not only to match the map but also to get better performance.

The performance map of an optimized pump and pump design obtained from scratch with an existing pump design at design speed line are presented in Figure 2 (a) and (b) respectively.

Head Versus Mass Flow Rate
(a) Head Versus Mass Flow Rate
Efficiency Versus Mass Flow Rate
(b) Efficiency Versus Mass Flow Rate
Figure 3. Performance Map of the Optimized Pump and Pump design Obtained from Preliminary Stage with Existing Pump Design at Design Speed Line

Figure 2 (a) shows the performance in terms of pressure head and mass flow rate for design speed line of 3900 rpm. Figure 2 (b) shows the efficiency at the same speed line plotted against the mass flow rate. From Figure 2, it is evident that the optimized pump design performance has increased in terms of head throughout the operating range while compared to the existing pump design. At the same time, there is a huge increment in efficiency near the higher mass flow rates and there is a slight decrement near the lower mass flow rates.

It is also evident from Figure 2, that the new pump design obtained from scratch has higher performance in terms of both head and efficiency throughout the operating range compared to optimized pump design.

Hence, from second approach, the designers can obtain a new pump design from scratch which can match or achieve better performance than an existing optimized pump design within the given constraints. Figure 3 shows the pump design obtained from scratch using the second approach in AxSTREAM ION™.

Figure 3 Obtained Pump Design from Scratch
Figure 4. Obtained Pump Design from Scratch

Are you interested in learning about how SoftInWay can help you optimize an existing pump design? And/or to obtain a new pump design from scratch to match or achieve better performance than an existing pump design using AxSTREAM® integrated within the AxSTREAM ION™ platform ? Reach out to us at Info@Softinway.com to schedule a demo!