TY - JOUR
TI - Numerical analysis of flow structure and energy loss in an impeller side chamber of a molten salt pump
AU - Jin Yong-Xin
AU - Zhang De-Sheng
AU - Zhao Rui-Jie
AU - Shi Lei
AU - Shi Wei-Dong
JN - Thermal Science
PY - 2019
VL - 23
IS - 4
SP - 2333
EP - 2341
PT - Article
AB - The internal flow structure and the energy loss in the first stage impeller  side chamber of a molten salt pump for solar thermal power generation were  investigated numerically. The flow field in the model pump was simulated  based on the RANS equation using the standard k-ε turbulence model. The  results indicate that the rotating speed of core flow in the front impeller  side chamber is higher than the tangential velocity at the maximal radius of  the front shroud. However, the core flow in the rear impeller side chamber  gives an opposite trend. Meanwhile, the radial velocity at the  boundary-layer separation point on the front impeller side chamber  stationary wall decreases initially and then increases with the radius  while it only decreases in the rear impeller side chamber. For the energy  loss, the percentage of the disk friction loss to total energy consumption  reduces as the flow rate increases, while the absolute value of disk  friction loss on the front shroud keeps almost constant and the loss on the  rear shroud decreases with the increasing flow rate.