The transient behavior of centrifugal pumps during transient operating periods, such as startup and stopping, has drawn more and more attention recently because of urgent needs in engineering. Up to now, almost all the existing studies on this behavior are limited to using water as working fluid. The study on the transient behavior related to solid-liquid two-phase flow has not been seen yet. In order to explore the transient characteristics of a high specific-speed centrifugal pump during startup period delivering the pure water and solid-liquid two-phase flow, the transient flows inside the pump are numerically simulated using the dynamic mesh method. The variable rotational speed and flow rate with time obtained from experiment are best fitted as the function of time, and are written into computational fluid dynamics （CFD） code-FLUENT by using a user defined function. The predicted heads are compared with experimental results when pumping pure water. The results show that the difference in the transient performance during startup period is very obvious between water and solid-liquid two-phase flow during the later stage of startup process. Moreover, the time for the solid-liquid two-phase flow to achieve a stable condition is longer than that for water. The solid-liquid two-phase flow results in a higher impeller shaft power, a larger dynamic reaction force, a more violent fluctuation in pressure and a reduced stable pressure rise comparing with water. The research may be useful to tmderstanding on the transient behavior of a centrifugal pump under a solid-liquid two-phase flow during startup period.
Transient performance of fluid machinery during transient operating periods, such as startup and stopping, has been drawn more attentions recently due to the growing engineering needs. In this paper, the transient behavior of a prototype centrifugal pump with an open impeller during rapid startup period is studied experimentally. The variations of the rotational speed, flow rate, head, and shaft power during rapid startup period are recorded in ex- periments at different discharge valve openings. In addition, the non-dimensional flow rate and head are also used to analyze the transient behavior. The research result shows that the rise characteristic of the rotational speed is not basically changed by working points, while mainly depends on the startnp characteristics of the driving motor. Compared with the rapid rise of the rotational speed, the flow rate rises slowly in the initial stage of startup. Moreover, the flow rate lags behind the rotational speed to rise to final stable value, and the delay becomes more severe with the increase of the discharge valve opening. The shaft power impact phenomenon generally exists in the process of startup. The non-dimensional analysis shows that the non-dimensional head is very high at the very beginning of startup, and quickly falls to the minimum, then gradually rises to final stable value, while the non-dimensional flow rate always shows the rise tendency during whole startup period. In conclusion, it is found from the non-dimensional results that the quasi-steady analysis is unable to accurately assess the transient flow during startup period.
