Study of the Effect of Blade Numbers on Centrifugal Pump Performance

Centrifugal pumps have many applications in various industries. Therefore, in this study, the effect of different blade numbers on the centrifugal pumps performance has been numerically investigated. The flow in impeller and volute has been investigated numerically by ANSYS-CFX commercial code. A numerical study has been done using Finite volume method and K-ωSST turbulence model. Rotating and stationary frames have been used to analyze flow in impeller and volute respectively and the results have been coupled by frozen rotor. Five impellers with 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 blades were tested. Six-bladed H-Q curve of centrifugal pump was compared with a real model. Due to the small numerical error, we could use simulated pump with high reliability. The results indicate an increase in the head and a decrease in efficiency of the pump with increasing the blade number. Finally, the optimum number of blades for the pump has been obtained.