Numerical analysis of the radial load of a single blade pump.

A screw-type centrifugal pump is a kind of non-clog type pump and has been widely used, for instance, for drainage of rainwater as well as slurries and mud in sewage control systems. In order to avoid choking the impeller passage with the congestion of solids, the impeller is designed to have a wide passage which configuration is screw formed by a three-dimensional spiral blade added to a conical hub cone. This paper presents the results of pressure and velocity fields in centrifugal pump with single blade. In the pump tested, a volute with circular cross-section was used. The prediction of radial thrust is important and useful information for the safe operation and design of the bearings. Particularly, the fluctuation of radial thrust in this pump is large because of one blade. The tests were carried out for several flows, including above and below the nominal one. Effects of the time-steady flow in a single-blade pump are investigated by numerical method CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics), specifically discussing the conditions of internal flow such as velocity and pressure. For a numerical approach the three-dimensional, viscous, unsteady flow field in the pump has been achieved by solving the unsteady Navier-Stokes equations (URANS) with a commercial code. Commercial code ANSYS CFX was used for the calculations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]