Characteristic analysis on the pressure fluctuation in the impeller of a low specific speed mixed flow pump

To explore the pressure fluctuation characteristics of a low speed specific speed mixed flow pump caused by rotor-stator interaction, the unsteady flow was simulated with CFX for the whole flow passage of a mixed flow pump with a specific speed of 148.8. The structured mesh of the computation domain was generated with ICEM CFD and TurboGrid, and mesh-independent analysis was done in the design condition. Through the comparison with the experiment data, the reliability of the simulation was verified. In different locations of the impeller passage, monitoring points were set. With Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), the characteristic analysis on the pressure fluctuation in the impeller passage was done for three flow rate conditions (0.75Q_d, Q_d, 1.25Q_d). The results show that the pressure fluctuation amplitude increases from the inlet to the outlet. And the maximum values in different flow rates exist near the hub of the outlet; The pressure fluctuation is small in the design condition, but the largest in the small flow rate condition, accompanied by the secondary dominant frequencies with large amplitudes; In the small flow rate condition and design condition, the dominant frequency varies from the inlet to the outlet because the combine action of the impeller and guide vane; while in the large flow rate condition, the pressure fluctuation in the whole impeller passage is affected significantly by the guide vane, and the domain frequency is 8 times the rotational frequency of impeller. In addition, the change of pressure fluctuation from the pressure surface to the suction surface in the off-design conditions is investigated, and the results demonstrates that the intensity of the pressure fluctuation in the impeller passage is closely related with the impeller as well as the distribution of the vorticity and the pressure.