Study on the effect of blade number on internal flow characteristics and hydraulic performance of steam-driven feedwater pump

Excessive vibration issues encounter frequently in during actual operation of the steam-driven feedwater pump. In order to promote the further optimization of the design of steam-driven feedwater pumps, the influence of the number of blades on the internal flow characteristics and hydraulic performance of has been studied. The SSTk−ω turbulence model is adopted in this paper. The steady-state numerical simulation of the internal flow state of the steam-driven feedwater pumps under different blade numbers is carried out, and its hydraulic characteristic curve is compared and analyzed. The results show that the flow field at the suction surface of the blade is improved with the increase of the number of blades, but too many blades will reduce the work capacity of the impeller decreases. Under the rated flow conditions, the impeller structure with 7 blades has the largest head, the impeller with 8 blades is the most efficient than an impeller with other blade counts.