EUR
en
The centrifugal slurry pump is widely applied for the transportation of liquid medium containing solid particles. The introduction of solid particles will lead to a decrease in efficiency and wear of the slurry pump. To solve this problem, it is imperative to review the hydraulic performance and erosion characteristic of slurry pumps under solid-liquid two-phase flow in recent years. In this review, firstly, the general structure and engineering application are introduced. Next, the experimental and simulation research methods of particle movement and erosion wear are explored. Then, the influence of solid particles on the hydraulic performance and particle distribution is analyzed. Afterwards, the variation laws of erosion wear under different flow-passing components and particle properties are clarified. Finally, according to the current research status and conclusions, the design optimization measures and future investigate direction are proposed, aiming to promote the resolution of wear damage and extend the service life of the slurry pump.
The centrifugal slurry pump is primarily used for transporting the liquid media contained the solid particles. Their operating principle is that the impeller is driven by a motor to rotate at high speed, generating a centrifugal force that acts on the liquid medium. This process increases the pressure and velocity of the liquid medium to efficiently and quickly transport solid-liquid mixture. As shown in Fig.1, the centrifugal slurry pump mainly composed of the impeller, volute, shaft, frame, bearing housing, motor and baseplate. Among them, the impeller serves as the core component for working on the fluid medium and increasing its kinetic energy, and its structure plays a decisive role in the slurry pump hydraulic performance and wear characteristic. The impeller is mainly composed of blades, hub, and shroud. According to the coverage degree of the shroud, centrifugal pumps can be divided into open, semi open, and closed types. The volute not only provides steering and deceleration of fluid medium to increase their pressure, but also helps to reduce flow friction and minimize flow losses. Its structural design also affects the efficiency and wear of the slurry pump.
The centrifugal slurry pump is widely applied in a variety of industrial production processes including agricultural irrigation, deep-sea mining, petroleum extraction, molten salt energy storage, etc. In the agricultural irrigation project at the Yellow River pumping station shown in Fig.2(a), river water is primarily pumped to the canal for irrigation of farmland by several high flow rate double-suction centrifugal slurry pumps located in the pumping station. The severe erosion wear caused by sand particles in the river water significantly affects the long-term safe and stable operation of the pumps. In the deep-sea mining system shown in Fig.2(b), the commonly used pipeline lifting mining process involves transporting the mixture of seawater and mineral particles collected by mining vehicles to the surface mother ship through multistage centrifugal slurry pumps. It consists mainly of the mining vehicle subsystem, the lifting subsystem, the mother ship with auxiliary support subsystem, and a deep discharge subsystem. One of the most significant technical challenges in deep-sea mining is the erosion wear failure caused by solid particle impacting in centrifugal slurry pumps. In the submersible oil pumping system for oil production shown in Fig.2(c), crude oil is pumped from underground wells to surface oil production facilities by multistage centrifugal slurry pumps. The erosive wear caused by sand particles in the well seriously threatens the service life of the submersible pumps. In the molten salt energy storage process depicted in Fig.2(d), the high-temperature salt solution, which contains stored energy derived from off-peak electricity, wind power, solar power, and other sources, is transported by molten salt centrifugal slurry pumps for domestic heating. The impingement of crystalline particles in the salt solution also increases the risk of erosive wear failure of slurry pumps.
The centrifugal slurry pump generally suffers from low efficiency when conveying slurry mixture, which will lead to significant energy wastage. Additionally, the flow-passing components of centrifugal slurry pumps are prone to wear failure under the impact of solid particles carried by high-speed liquid media, resulting in problems such as thinning, deformation, and perforation. This not only significantly reduces the centrifugal pump performance but also shortens their service life. The necessity for frequent maintenance and replacement further exacerbates the economic losses, severely influencing industrial production efficiency. Therefore, it is crucial to review on hydraulic performance and erosion wear of the centrifugal slurry pump under the solid-liquid two-phase flow to encourage more engineers to solve the difficulty.
As shown in Fig.3, the methods for studying the centrifugal slurry pump can be primarily divided into experiment and numerical simulation. According to different research objects, experimental methods can be divided into two categories. One is to conduct the visual experiment of particle motion trajectory to predict the erosion location, and other is to directly analyzed the wear position, morphology, and rate in the laboratory test or engineering application.
Centrifugal slurry pumps commonly suffer from low operating efficiency and severe erosion wear in solid-liquid two-phase flow. The influence of solid particles on flow characteristics is the reason for the low performance of slurry pumps, and understanding the motion and distribution characteristics of solid particles can effectively predict erosion wear. In order to improve the working efficiency and wear resistance performance of slurry pumps, many scholars have studied the influence of solid
In order to reduce the erosion wear rate in centrifugal slurry pumps, numerous scholars and researchers have extensively investigated the wear forms, locations, extents, and change laws of components such as the impeller, volute casing, hub, and shroud under different flow rates, particle concentrations, size, shapes, and densities. By implementing improvements to operating parameters and optimizing structural design, the long-term safe and stable operation of centrifugal slurry pumps under
The engineering applications, research methods of experiment and simulation, hydraulic performance, particle motion characteristics, and erosion wear laws of the centrifugal slurry pump transporting solid-liquid two-phase mixture is reviewed in this article, the following conclusions are drawn:(1)The CFD-DPM method is widely applied to simulate the erosion wear of the slurry pump. The PIV is the most commonly employed visual experimental method for studying particle movement trajectories and
It is not necessary to conduct repetitive research, so researchers should further explore the research gaps on the erosion wear of the slurry pump on the basic of above research conclusions. The future research directions and contents are suggested by the authors based on the current research status:(1)At present, most numerical simulation studies on erosion wear of the slurry pump are primarily concentrated on spherical particles. However, there is relatively little research on erosion wear under
Bookmark
Daniel Féau processes personal data in order to optimise communication with our sales leads, our future clients and our established clients.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.