Proceedings of the Thirty-second (2022) International Ocean and Polar Engineering Conference
Shanghai, China, June 5–10, 2022
Copyright © 2022 by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE)
ISBN 978-1-880653-81-4; ISSN 1098-6189

www.isope.org

Numerical Simulation and Experimental Study of Solid-liquid Two-phase Flow in Pump
Jin Xing Shufeng Cheng Guojun Hong Tao Guo

National Engineering Research Center of Dredging Technology and Equipment, Shanghai China.

ABSTRACT

simulation are mainly divided into Eulerian-Eulerian model andEulerian-Lagrangian model, which regard solid-phase particles ascontinuous flowing medium and discrete phase, respectively. Whensolving with Eulerian-Eulerian model, it is impossible to obtain theaccurate trajectory of a single particle, but it can quickly obtain the
average velocity, concentration and other parameters of solid and liquid
phases at different positions in the flow field, which can be used toquickly predict the effect of particle concentration, size and otherparameters on pump performance (Park et al., 2009; Zhang et al., 2013).
The velocity, position and other information of each particle can beobtained through the Eulerian-Lagrangian model, and the particle
motion characteristics in the pump under different working conditions
can be studied (Guo et al., 2020). The particle size has the greatest
influence on the wear position, with the increase of particle size, theparticle segregation becomes more obvious (Xiao et al., 2013; Li et al.,2014). By comparing the effects of three different particle sizes on thewear position of pump blades, it is found that with the increase ofparticle size, the follow-up of particles becomes worse, the wear at theimpeller decreases, while the wear at the volute increases, and the wearof particles on blades is mainly concentrated on the working face andthe leading edge of blades (Shen et al., 2016; Huang et al. 2016).
The pump models used in the above experimental research are too smallin size, and the results are difficult to be directly applied to large-size
pumps. In this paper, a transparent pump with an inlet diameter of
150mm is used as the research object. The motion of particles after
entering the pump is photographed by a high-speed camera, andcompared with the numerical simulation results to analyze the motion
law of particles in the pump.

The motion law of solid particles in the pump is the research anddevelopment basis of two-phase flow pump, which is an importantequipment in deep-sea mining. In this paper, a transparent pump test
platform is developed, and the experimental research on the movementof particles in the pump is carried out. At the same time, the test results
under the same working condition are compared with the numericalsimulation results, and the motion law of particles in the pump isanalyzed and obtained.

KEY WORDS: Two-phase flow pump; numerical simulation; motion
law of particles; particle size .

INTRODUCTION
The motion law of particles in the pump is the research focus of solidliquid two-phase flow pump at present. The structure of solid-liquid
two-phase flow pump is mainly centrifugal, and the research methods
include experimental research and numerical simulation. Somecharacteristics of particle velocity distribution in the pump are obtainedby particle image velocimetry. First of all, the particle size has a certain
impact on the relative velocity of solid and liquid in the pump impeller.
The smaller the particle size is, the smaller the relative velocity between
particles and liquid, at the same time, the velocity of large particle size
is only gradually close to the liquid at the impeller outlet. Secondly,with the increase of pump speed and particle concentration, the trend ofparticle movement to the blade pressure surface is more significant(Mehmet et al., 2001; Kadambi et al., 2004; Xu et al., 2017). However,this technology can not obtain the trajectory of particles, and when there
are too many particles, it will block the laser illumination. The velocity,trajectory and distribution of particles in the pump can be obtained byhigh-speed camera technology. The trajectory change law of sphericalparticles with different particle sizes in the pump is similar, and there isa tendency to move to the back of the blade at the inlet of the impeller,in the process of movement, the particles gradually separate from theback of the blade and close to the pressure face of the next blade (Tan etal., 2021). The volume concentration of small mass particles near theblade pressure surface at the impeller outlet is high, while thedistribution of large mass particles is just the opposite (Yang et al.,2006).
At present, the solid-liquid two-phase flow models used in numerical

PARTICLE MOTION TEST IN PUMP
In order to observe and analyze the motion and distribution
characteristics of particles in the pump, the test platform needs to beequipped with a transparent model pump and corresponding equipment
to capture and track the moving particles in the pump, and measure theflow and other parameters of the pump.

Experimental setup
The main components of the test platform are shown in Figure 1: thesize of the test platform is 9m long, 3.6m wide and 5m high. The lengthof the main pipe is 30m and the pipe diameter is 150mm. First of all, thetest platform starts to operate with clean water, and the particle motion

65