Numerical study on cylindrical particle solid-liquid two-phase flow in a slurry pump

The particles transported by slurry pumps in practical engineering are non-spherical, but the current research mainly focuses on spherical particles, which limits their further development. To investigate the non-spherical particle movement in the pump, the multi-sphere model is applied to construct a cylindrical particle model. The RANS-DEM approach is employed to analyze the movement characteristics of cylindrical particle within a slurry pump, and the effects of densities, concentrations, and shapes are considered. The research results indicate that the average velocity of cylindrical particle decreases with the increase in particle density. With the increase in density, the maximum average velocity of particles decreases about 7.3%, and the time to reach the peak decreases, about 15.6%. Additionally, cylindrical particles tend to move toward the pressure side in the impeller, while the accumulation of particles in the middle of the guide vane becomes more prominent. Moreover, the proportion of collisions between particles and guide vanes to total collision is reduced, about 5.9%. As the cylindrical particle concentration increases, the particle average velocity in the pump decreases and some particles deviate from the blade pressure side. The maximum velocity of particles with the lowest concentration is higher than that of the particles with the highest concentration, approximately 5.48%. The accumulation in the middle of the guide vane flow channel deteriorates and the total particle collisions increase. Compared with spherical particles, the average velocity of cylindrical particles is faster, about 1.01%. Cylindrical particles move more smoothly along the pressure side in the impeller. At the same time, the total collision numbers of cylindrical particles are 13.46% higher than that of spherical particles, and the collision type is mainly between particles and guide vanes. The effect of the particle properties parameters on pump performance could provide theoretical support for the design of high-performance deep-sea mining slurry pumps.

Automated summary

The current research on slurry pump particles mainly focuses on spherical particles, neglecting the non-spherical particles commonly found in practical engineering. This study applies a multi-sphere model to construct a cylindrical particle model and analyzes the movement characteristics of cylindrical particles within a slurry pump using the RANS-DEM approach. The research findings show that the average velocity of cylindrical particles decreases with increasing particle density and concentration, and cylindrical particles tend to accumulate in the middle of the guide vane.