Experimental Evaluation of Impeller Surface Geometry Effect on the Performance of a Centrifugal pump

An experimental investigation is carried out to document the impeller surface geometry effects on the performance of a centrifugal pump Total three types of impeller surface geometries are investigated in this study. All the experiments were performed on the PumpLabTM, a self contained centrifugal- flow pump demonstrator made by the Turbine Technologies. This system offers a clear visualization of pump performance and operating characteristics including a see-through flow circuit from the point of reservoir pickup to reservoir return. Inlet and outlet valves were manually adjusted for the creation of pump performance curves. The pump's rpm were varied remotely through computer control to create the system resistance curves. The rpm and flow rates of the pump were varied via installed flow rotameter in order to obtain pressure data. Using the experimental data, the pump performance curves, pump head (Delta H), and system curves were calculated for each impeller surface geometry. The pump's performance and system curves were then plotted at four different speeds. The results show that the pump performance varies significantly based on impeller surface geometry. The results help to understand how to determine appropriate operating points for different impeller surface geometries by optimizing the pump performance