Slide 1

Hello every ones,

My name is Rifki,
I take this course as an audit in order to prepare my master research.
So that in this occasion I only inform several research using laser technology
in the centrifugal pump application.
Slide 2.
In industrial application, to reduce the operational cost, people try to improve the
performance of the engine in the plant especially the centrifugal pumps, because
the around 80% of turbomachine in the plant are centrifugal pumps.
In order to improve the performance people need to know the flow structure inside
the centrifugal pump.
Maintenance issues also becomes one of the problems of the production cost since
the centrifugal pump has a complex flow structure that can cause undesired load
which is a trouble if we designing an engine.
Slide 3.
For those who do not familiar about centrifugal pump, I will explain a little bit about
theory behind the centrifugal pump.
The components of the centrifugal pump consist of two parts which are impeller and
the volute. The impeller transfer the energy to the fluid by converting kinetic energy
through the rotation,
Then the fluid flows to the exit through the volute. The volute changes the kinetic
energy to the pressure.
Euler introduced a model for the fluid flows inside the impeller with several
assumptions first the fluid is inviscid and the flow steady and last, the blade number
is assumed infinite. Using that assumtions the fluid looks like the dotted line like
this.
However, in 1928 Busemann the mathematician explained that the flow inside the
rotating passage does not follow the blade curvature because of the fluid inviscid so
that there is slip.
People also try to model the fluid inside the rotating passage uses potential flow
theory. These theories which are developed must be proved by the experiment.

Slide 4.
Fischer and thoma in 1932 through their experiment explained that a Jet-wake
pattern built at the exit of the impeller. The jet built in the pressure side of the
impeller and the wake built in the suction side of the impeller.
Lenneman in 1969 used hydrogen bubble to conduct visualization of fluid inside the
impeller and he used how wire anemometry to obtain the velocity profile of the fluid
inside the impeller.
Form the experiment it was also found that the flow doesnot follow the blade
curvature even in the design flow rate. At the low flow rate, the fluid stall and
circulating in the suction of the impeller.
Slide 5
The limitations of the experiments in the past are
1. Since the flow inside the impeller is complex, most of the flow structure could
not be observed
2. Required big and slow rotation of the impeller to install the measuring device
3. Becase the instrument was installed inside the impeller; it could change the
fluid structure.
4. The calibration process takes time.
5. Last, this only limited several applications.
Slide 6.
After technology of laser improved, In 1989, Miner et All conducting a research
about flow structure in the impeller and volute using laser velocimeter.
Laser velocimeter is similar to LDV which utilizes the frequency shifted.
The picture shows the experimental set up. These are the regions where they obtain
the velocity data.
Another researcher which conduct the centrifugal pump experiment was Abramiam
and Howard in the university of waterloo.
Slide 7
The results of the experiments are
1. The Radial velocity increases from the pressure side to suction side close to
the inlet of the impeller. However at region close to the exit, the radial

velocity increase from the suction side to the pressure side. This is a sign of
the jet wake pattern which also found by thoma and fischer.
2. The blade loading shows the sign of the fluid received the energy from the
impeller, At region close to the inlet the positive blade loadin seen in the
result so at this region the energy transfer is occurred.
3. In the volute, the flow become more stable where the V(theta) is more stable.
Slide 8
From the results the improvement and the limitation of the experiment using
LDV are
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

LDV can predict the turbulence flow very well

Good spatial resolution because it is point to point measurement
It has low uncertainty level
Less invasive
Time consuming
Required big space for the experimental set up.

Slide 9
After the Adrian introduced the PIV technology, Dong et all conduct a centrifugal
experiment using PIV measurement.
I will not explain this method too much because we have already learned it.
However, I just explain a bit about the experimental set up.
They used Nd: Yag Laser and the video camera to record the picture.
The picture shows the experimental set up. They picked to measure 2 regions. The
volute region was chosen because the flow structure is not too complex so they can
verify the measurement with past research.
The Pictures below are one of the pictures from the film in this region. The film was
divided into 35 windows. One of the windows is shown in this picture. Each windows
consists of 512x512 pixels.
Using the auto correlation the peak which is resulted from that windows is like this.
Slide 10
The result from the experiment were
1. The level of uncertainty associated to the fluid velocity is smaller when there
are more particles each pixels ( in this experiment the particles were varied 1
to 8 particles)
2. The absolute velocity vector of the volute region was captured in this picture
3. The jet wake pattern also found in the result which can be seen from the
radial velocity obtained by the PIV.

Slide 11
Other research also conducted by Pedersen et All (2003) to observe the flow
behavior inside the impeller at design rate and low flow rate. They also want to
verify the PIV measurement with the PDV measurement of the flow inside the
impeller
This is the experiment set up
Slide 12.
This were the result of the experiment
The PIV result was agree with the LDV. It can be seen here the relative velocity
obtain from the PIV and LDV shows similarity where no circulation existence in the
impeller.
The turbulence energy also indicates that the flow inside the impeller is more
complex compare to the flow inside the impeller even though the data is obtained
from the mean of the several samples.
The Low flow rate flow shows region which is the fluid stall and the region that the
fluid is not stall, the LDV measurement also show the similarity.
Slide 13.
To sum up
The PIV measurement has beneficial to measuring flow inside the impeller because
The measurement can be conducted in 2D field
The results satisfactory agree with other measurement
The measurement method also shows that low level uncertainty
However the limitation of the PIV method is difficult to measure high range of
velocity
Slide 14
For my research I will conduct PIV measurement in the radial pump. The
Performance result of the pump shows in the chart. The Impeller is follow the affinity
laws. It shows in the efficiency result which is constant for several RPM and the
Head Flow coefficient is in the one line.
Slide 15

This is my experiment set up. I will place the laser here so that it can spread the
laser from here. The camera will be placed here so that it can capture this region.
Slide 16
These are my reference
Slide 17
Terima kasih , thank you for listening. You can ask or add if you wish.