Investigation on gas-liquid two-phase flow centrifugal pump performances for different rotational speeds

Performance characteristics of a centrifugal pump under gas-liquid mixture are presented, using a direct coupled single-stage, single-suction centrifugal pump. Both experimental and numerical simulations comparison are carried out, for three different rotational speeds and different inlet gas volume fractions, the results of which are presented, based on dimensionless coefficients from similarity laws. The numerical results show that good agreement is obtained with experimental data at nominal rotational speed for several flow coefficients. It is found that the running of the pump is near the sudden break down of the present pump when the inlet void fraction is below 7%. However, numerical results are less sensitive to rotational speed effects compared with experiment ones; the influence of decreasing rotational speed on pump performances is more and more pronounced when inlet gas void fraction increases and flow coefficient decreases. Froude number effects are taken into account in order to explain part of these differences.