Flow investigation in a centrifugal pump

From multiple medical studies on ventricular assist devices, thrombosis and haemolysis within centrifugal blood pumps have shown to be greatly affected by leakage flow characteristics. Leakage flow occurs within the clearance gap between impeller wall and volute wall of a centrifugal pump. Stagna...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Goh, Yi Fan
Other Authors: Chan Weng Kong
Format: Final Year Project (FYP)
Language:English
Published: 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10356/67718
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author Goh, Yi Fan
author2 Chan Weng Kong
author_facet Chan Weng Kong
Goh, Yi Fan
author_sort Goh, Yi Fan
collection NTU
description From multiple medical studies on ventricular assist devices, thrombosis and haemolysis within centrifugal blood pumps have shown to be greatly affected by leakage flow characteristics. Leakage flow occurs within the clearance gap between impeller wall and volute wall of a centrifugal pump. Stagnation of blood flow can cause blood to clot while high blood flow rate accompanied by shearing can cause blood to rupture. Leakage flow can also reduce the volumetric efficiency of a centrifugal pump. These effects are undesirable and hence form the study motivation for this project. According to many researchers investigating flow patterns within ventricular assist devices, it is difficult to measure the leakage flow rates in the clearance gap experimentally. One of the many experimental methods to obtain leakage flow rates is to drive back flow of fluid through a pump with dummy impeller using an auxiliary pump. Then, a coupling method that uses differential pressure can extrapolate total leakage flow rates for pump with real impeller. Thus, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation was utilised in this study to validate results obtained from the experimental dummy impeller method and investigate leakage flow characteristics using a numerical approach. CFD simulations were done for a miniature pump with 50mm diameter impeller. 80 cases were simulated in total and the variables include operating speed (1500rpm, 2000rpm), gap width (0.2mm, 0.3mm, 0.4mm, 0.5mm), and impeller type (real, dummy). It was found that pump performance is better when gap width is decreased. Total leakage flow rates increased with higher differential pressure across gap and larger gap width. Total leakage flow rates obtained from experiments and CFD simulation for both operating speeds have less than 10% difference on average, except for gap width of 0.5mm. While within experimental and numerical errors, pump with dummy impeller and CFD simulations were able to estimate total leakage flow rates fairly well.
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spelling ntu-10356/677182023-03-04T19:18:36Z Flow investigation in a centrifugal pump Goh, Yi Fan Chan Weng Kong Wong Yew Wah School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering DRNTU::Engineering From multiple medical studies on ventricular assist devices, thrombosis and haemolysis within centrifugal blood pumps have shown to be greatly affected by leakage flow characteristics. Leakage flow occurs within the clearance gap between impeller wall and volute wall of a centrifugal pump. Stagnation of blood flow can cause blood to clot while high blood flow rate accompanied by shearing can cause blood to rupture. Leakage flow can also reduce the volumetric efficiency of a centrifugal pump. These effects are undesirable and hence form the study motivation for this project. According to many researchers investigating flow patterns within ventricular assist devices, it is difficult to measure the leakage flow rates in the clearance gap experimentally. One of the many experimental methods to obtain leakage flow rates is to drive back flow of fluid through a pump with dummy impeller using an auxiliary pump. Then, a coupling method that uses differential pressure can extrapolate total leakage flow rates for pump with real impeller. Thus, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation was utilised in this study to validate results obtained from the experimental dummy impeller method and investigate leakage flow characteristics using a numerical approach. CFD simulations were done for a miniature pump with 50mm diameter impeller. 80 cases were simulated in total and the variables include operating speed (1500rpm, 2000rpm), gap width (0.2mm, 0.3mm, 0.4mm, 0.5mm), and impeller type (real, dummy). It was found that pump performance is better when gap width is decreased. Total leakage flow rates increased with higher differential pressure across gap and larger gap width. Total leakage flow rates obtained from experiments and CFD simulation for both operating speeds have less than 10% difference on average, except for gap width of 0.5mm. While within experimental and numerical errors, pump with dummy impeller and CFD simulations were able to estimate total leakage flow rates fairly well. Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering) 2016-05-19T07:33:27Z 2016-05-19T07:33:27Z 2016 Final Year Project (FYP) http://hdl.handle.net/10356/67718 en Nanyang Technological University 102 p. application/pdf
spellingShingle DRNTU::Engineering
Goh, Yi Fan
Flow investigation in a centrifugal pump
title Flow investigation in a centrifugal pump
title_full Flow investigation in a centrifugal pump
title_fullStr Flow investigation in a centrifugal pump
title_full_unstemmed Flow investigation in a centrifugal pump
title_short Flow investigation in a centrifugal pump
title_sort flow investigation in a centrifugal pump
topic DRNTU::Engineering
url http://hdl.handle.net/10356/67718
work_keys_str_mv AT gohyifan flowinvestigationinacentrifugalpump