Analysis of the performances of an axial flow tandem pump based on CFD computations

Tandem pump, compared with multistage pump, goes without guide vanes between impellers. Significant reduction of the axial geometry scale, resulting from lack of guide vanes, makes great sense to high-speed propulsion. Direct interactions between front and rear impellers may lead to special flows, which are different from those in a multistage pump. There are few studies of these differences. In this article, CFD computations of flows in an axial flow tandem pump are conducted to predict the performances. FBM turbulence model, which is introduced to commercial software, is used for the simulations. Circulation coefficient is defined to help analyze energy characteristics. The results demonstrate that power of the tandem pump increases slowly as discharge is getting larger. The tandem pump has better adaptability under large discharge conditions. The head of the rear impeller is not sensitive to discharge's change, which results from that the front impeller weakens the influence of discharge's change on the rear impeller, so pump's energy characteristics may be improved.