Modares Mechanical Engineering

Modares Mechanical Engineering

Numerical simulation and multi-objective optimization of the centrifugal pump inducer

Authors
mohammad hassan shojaeefard 1
seyed ehsan hosseini 1
javad zare 2
1 Iran university of science and technology
2 School of mechanical engineering, Iran university of science and technology
Abstract
Inducers are important devices which are mounted upstream of the inlet to the main impeller of the centrifugal pump to achieve higher suction performance and rotate with the same speed as the impeller. Inducers improve the hydraulic performance and lifespan of the pump through increasing the inlet pressure, but the quantity of the improvement is dependent on the geometrical parameters of the inducer. Therefore, the optimization of these parameters is crucial. In the present study, the performance of an inducer is optimized by considering the inlet tip blade angle, the outlet tip blade angle and the ratio of the outlet hub radius to inlet hub radius as design variables and the head coefficient, the hydraulic efficiency and the required net positive suction head as objective functions. The inducer performance is simulated using 3-D computational fluid dynamics and compared with experimental data which shows the validity of the used method and assumptions. The artificial neural network is used to relate between design variables and objective functions. Then, the Pareto fronts are plotted using the modified non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II and the proposed optimum points are presented using nearest point to the ideal point method. Using multi objective optimization, the head coefficient, the hydraulic efficiency and the net positive suction head are improved 14.3%, 0.3% and 30.2%, respectively. Recommended design points unveil important optimal design principles that would not have been obtained without the use of a multi objective optimization approach.
Keywords
Inducer
Centrifugal pump
artificial neural network
multi-objective optimization

Subjects

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Modares Mechanical Engineering
Volume 18, Issue 7
November 2018
Pages 205-216