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As pumps are used frequently in industrial plants, their performance improvement is important. In this study, performance improvement of centrifugal pumps by application of splitter blades have been investigated both numerically and experimentally. Radial impellers with different length of splitter blades have been manufactured and tested to obtain performance charts. On the other hand, the flow in impeller and volute has been investigated numerically by ANSYS-CFX commercial code. Numerical study has been done using Finite volume method and k-ωSST turbulence model. Rotating and stationary frames have been used to analyze flow in impeller and volute respectively and the results have been coupled by Frozen Rotor. Three impellers with the lengths of splitter blades equal to 0, 33% and 66% of original blades were tested. Results show head increase when the splitter blades added while the amount of increase depends on the splitter blades length. At BEP (Best Efficiency Point) the maximum head increase was reported for impeller type three (the length of splitters equal to 66% of original blades) about 10.5 percent. It should be noted that as the capacity tends to BEP, the effect of splitter blades is more significant.

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slip factor is one of the most important parameters used in centrifugal pumps performance prediction. Knowing this parameter as a function of flow rate seems essential for off-design performance prediction. In this paper, it is intended to establish the slip factor dependence upon flow rate for a centrifugal pump using computational fluid dynamics. For this purpose, the full 3D-RANS equations in coupled with RNG k-ε turbulence model were solved for several flow rates ranging from 45% to 120% of rated condition by means of a commercial code, CFX. In the steady state, this simulation is defined by means of the multi-reference frame technique, in which the impeller is situated in the rotating reference frame, and the volute is in the fixed reference frame. The validity of the numerical model was confirmed by matching the calculated characteristic curves with the associated experimental data. It was found that there is a good coincidence between the numerical results and available experimental data of global performance, local velocity distribution and slip factors. A comparison was performed among the well-known slip models which reveals, that the slip factor variations can be predicted very well using CFD analysis.