Numerical Research on Hydraulically Generated Vibration and Noise of a Centrifugal Pump Volute with Impeller Outlet Width Variation

The impeller outlet width of centrifugal pumps is of significant importance for numbers of effects. In the paper, these effects including the performance, pressure pulsations, hydraulically generated vibration, and noise level are investigated. For the purpose, two approaches were used to predict the vibration and sound radiation of the volute under fluid excitation force. One approach is the combined CFD/FEM analysis for structure vibration, and then the structure response obtained from the FEM analysis is treated as the boundary condition for BEM analysis for sound radiation. The other is the combined CFD/FEM/BEM coupling method. Before the numerical methods were used, the simulation results were validated by the vibration acceleration of the monitoring points on the volute. The vibration and noise were analyzed and compared at three flow conditions. The analysis of the results shows that the influences of the sound pressure of centrifugal pumps on the structure appear insignificant. The relative outlet width at (SI) = 26.7 in this paper should be less than 0.06, based on an overall consideration of the pump characteristics, pressure pulsations, vibration and noise level.