Study of Exchanged Mass Flow Process in Side Channel Pumps under Different Geometrical Parameters

The operation of side channel pumps mainly depends of the flow exchanged between the rotary impeller and static side channel. This paper in details describes this unique operational feature (exchanged mass flow) of a side channel pump model under different suction and wrapping angles. The first part of the paper explains the numerical and experimental measurements used on the pump model. Numerical simulations of different flow operating points of both design conditions were performed to examine the rate of the mass flow exchanged between the impeller and side channel. For the validation of the numerical settings, hydraulic performance measurements were conducted using different blade suction angles. The second part deals with the results from the numerical simulations. Higher blade suction angles enhance the mass flow exchanged and also the number of circulations is higher as the blade suction angle increases at all operating points. Thus, as the number of circulations increase the efficiency increases. Likely trends were observed in the case of different wrapping angles. As the wrapping angle decreased, the mass flow exchanged and circulation number enhanced.