Performance and internal flow pattern analyses of a specific centrifugal disc pump under air-water two-phase flow conditions

• Published in: Energy (Oxford) 2024-11, Vol.309, p.132981, Article 132981
• Main Authors: Heng, Yaguang, Chen, Zhengsu, Jiang, Qifeng, Bois, Gérard, Zhang, Weibin, He, Kunjian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Centrifugal disc pump; Computational fluid dynamics; Experimental measurements; Gas-liquid two-phase flow; Performance analysis; Pump hydraulic efficiency
• ISSN: 0360-5442
• DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2024.132981

Centrifugal pumps are the main energy-consuming equipment in many fields, their efficiency always sharply decreases until shut down under gas-liquid flow conditions. In the present study, a specific centrifugal pump design is experimentally investigated under two-phase conditions. The experimental results show that such a pump design is characterized by a good ability to pump air-water two-phase mixtures without shutdown up to an inlet gas volume fraction (IGVF) of 26 %, a value which cannot be reached by conventional designs. The head and efficiency degradation ratios remain almost constant up to an IGVF of 9 % and decrease quasi-linearly up to an IGVF of 20 %. Based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) results, the gas was found to be concentrated mainly on the shroud side, and the gas volume fraction was quite low at the midspan and hub side. No strong gas blockage can be found even with a high IGVF of 15 %. The gas distribution has been analyzed in combination with the internal flow pattern which is quite different than that of conventional centrifugal pumps, and discussions have been presented to explain why the present disc pump is better at handling air-water two-phase flow mixtures. •Disc pump performances under air-water two-phase flow conditions have been firstly studied.•Disc pump is able to suck much more air content than conventional centrifugal pumps.•Performance degradation of disc pump is mild compared with that of conventional centrifugal pumps.•The gas content in disc pump is distributed mainly on the shroud side.•The flow passage of disc pump is wide and no strong gas blockage can be found within the impeller.