A Study on the Numerical Prediction of Cavitation In a Centrifugal Pump

원심펌프 내부의 캐비테이션 수치예측에 관한 연구

A Numerical study of the cavitation within a centrifugal pump is carried out using CFD commercial code, FLUENT. The objective of this study is to predict the onset of cavitation within the pump blade and the degradation in the pressure rise due to the generation and transport of vapor. A pump designed for the study is a six bladed, one-circular arc impeller design suggested by A.J. Stepanoff et al. The Steady-state calculations are performed for a wide range of flow rate without the cavitation to investigate the pump performance. The design head and efficiency show a very good agreement with the numerical results at the design flow rate. After the validation with the numerical results, the pump performance and the onset of cavitation within the blade is predicted by changing NPSH at the design flow rate.