Numerical Simulation of Solid-Liquid Two-Phase Flow Analysis of Submersible Drainage Pumps

Abstract

Submersible drainage pumps are widely used in various applications, including irrigation and drainage, municipal wastewater projects, and sewage pumping. These pumps are suitable for handling mixtures consisting of solid-liquid components and have sophisticated two-phase flow characteristics and wear mechanisms. Therefore, the operational stability of submersible pumps is essential when transporting solid-liquid mixtures. This work aims to optimize existing pumps and enhance hydraulic performance via the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software ANSYS-CFX. The test pump performance data were compared with the computational data to validate the pump model. The study revealed that altering the shape of the impeller hydraulic performance could improve by 4%, significantly reducing the erosion wear effects. Additionally, optimizing the casing shape could increase the efficiency by 4-5%, although practical implementation is challenging and improves the anti-wear erosion effects. The effects of the particle concentration and particle size were investigated and discussed under different operating conditions for various shape change models. The erosion rate increased with increasing particle concentration at both the leading and trailing edge of the impeller blades. Altering the pump's impeller can minimize the average erosion rate by at least 20%. The revised model significantly reduced erosion wear on the impeller blades.