Abstract:

A three-dimension gas-liquid two-phase flow with a high gas volumetric ratio in a helico-axialmultiphase rotodynamic pump is numerically simulated using the Fluent software. In the simulation, the Eulermodel of a two-phase turbulent flow in a multip le reference frame is adop ted. The rule and mechanism of the two-phase turbulent flow in the pump are then investigated by analyzing the absolute velocity in the pump, the relative velocity in the
impeller, the static p ressure, the distribution of gas and liquid phases, and the slip velocity between two phases.The results indicate that the liquid phase in the impeller mainly flows near the flange while the gas phase mainly near the hub due to the existence of centrifugal force, and that the two-phase separation in the diffuser obviously imp roves. The comparison of the p redicted results with the experimental ones demonstrates that the proposed me-thod is effective in the computation and analysis of the gas-liquid two2phase rotodynamic pump.

Key words: gas-liquid two-phase rotodynamic pump, numerical simulation, two-phase flow field, performance prediction