Numerical Simulation and Performance Prediction of Centrifugal Pump’s Full Flow Field Based on OpenFOAM

The open-source software OpenFOAM 5.0 was used as a platform to perform steady-state and transient numerical simulation for full flow field of a pipeline centrifugal pump (specific speed ns = 65) in a wide operating capacity range of 0.3Qd~1.4Qd. The standard k-ε and k-ω SST (Shear-Stress Transport) turbulence models were selected in the flow governing equations. The simpleFoam and pimpleDyMFoam solvers were used for the steady-state and transient calculations, respectively. ParaView, the postprocessor in OpenFOAM, was used to display the calculated flow velocity, pressure and streamline distributions, and to analyze the relationship between the vortex and the hydraulic loss in the pump. The external performance parameters of the pump such as head, input power and efficiency were also calculated based on the simulated flow fields. The predicted pump performances by OpenFOAM and Ansys-Fluent are compared with the test results under the same calculation model, grids and boundary conditions. The comparison indicates that OpenFOAM had high accuracy in the prediction of pump performance in the current case.