Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 31 (5) (2017) 2319~2329

www.springerlink.com/content/1738-494x(Print)/1976-3824(Online)
DOI 10.1007/s12206-017-0428-2

Numerical calculation and optimization designs in engine cooling water pump†

Li Wei1,2,*, Wang Chuan1,2, Shi Weidong1,2, Zhao Xiaofan1,2, Yang Yongfei1,2 and Pei Bing1,2
1
Research Center of Fluid Machinery Engineering and Technology, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China
2
National Research Center of Pumps, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China

(Manuscript Received July 26, 2016; Revised December 19, 2016; Accepted January 5, 2017)

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Abstract

The cavitation damage in the Engine cooling water pump (ECWP) is the key factor that shortens the lifespan of automobile cooling
systems, and causes vibration and noise. To improve cavitation performance and external characteristics of ECWP, three optimized mod-
els were designed on the basis of WP7 diesel ECWP. The whole flow fields in three models and the prototype pump were numerically
simulated, employing the time averaged Navier-Stokes equation, the standard k-ε turbulent model and Zwart-Gerber-Belamri multiphase
flow model by ANSYS-CFX software. Pressure distribution, turbulent kinetic energy distribution, bubble volume fraction distribution,
external characteristics and cavitation performance of the prototype pump and optimized models were compared and analyzed. The re-
sults show that the external characteristics and cavitation performance of the optimized models are significantly better than that in the
prototype pump. Through decreasing the inlet blade angle and wrap angle, extending the blade to inlets and extending a certain inclina-
tion in the blade, shock loss in blade inlet was reduced and so, the performance of pump will be improved. The flow condition at blade
inlet will also be improved greatly, which in turn improves cavitation performance. When reducing the quantity of blades, the excretion
coefficient will drop, flow area of blade inlet becomes bigger, but head has a little drop. And the pump optimized by reducing the quan-
tity of blades has the optimal cavitation performance among three optimized models. With the decrease of impeller diameter, the absolute
pressure in the critical cavitation point becomes bigger, the inlet bubble volume fraction at the same absolute pressure increases while
cavitation performance gets worse. The obtained numerical results were compared with the experimental ones, and the outcome showed
the same tendency between the two along with acceptable error.
Keywords: Engine cooling water pump (ECWP); Cavitation performance; Experiment; Numerical simulation
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tion of automotive cooling system [3-5]. Today, ECWP is not

1. Introduction
only expected to meet the requirements of external character-
As the impact of the cooling system on the engine perform- istics, but also has an excellent cavitation performance. There-
ance increases significantly, the thermal load and reliability of fore, the cavitation performance of ECWP needs significant
the critical components of ECWP have become a worldwide improvement.
research hotspot. ECWP, as the main part in engine cooling The research on numerical simulation of ECWP just be-
system to circle cooling water, often adopts open and un- gan in the 90s in China. Cipollone [6] designed a sliding
shrouded impeller without front shroud because of the restric- vane rotary pump for an existing engine cooling circuit. It
tions on engine structure and size, with characteristics of small was built and extensively tested to compare its performances
flux and high lift [1, 2]. Usually, the rotation speed in ECWP to a centrifugal mechanical type. Based on software AME-
is high in order to achieve the requirements of small size and Sim, Xiang [7] analyzed the cooling performance for the
high head. Besides the high speed, ECWP is also affected by cooling system of a vehicle engine named L416VSOHC and
the working conditions, and its working temperature is very provided a feasible and reliable method for the matching and
high. However, when operating under high temperature, high examination of engine cooling system Sheng [8] combined
speed and high flow conditions, the pump is at extreme risk the electronic pump and electronic fan by the microcontrol-
for cavitation. Currently, cavitation has become a key factor ler in engine cooling system that contains electronic pump
that shortens the lifespan of pumps, causing vibration, noise and electronic fanso the cooling system can automatically
and other hazards, which seriously affects the normal opera- adjust cooling capacity according to engine cooling require-
ment. Yang [9] combined 1D and 3D CFD optimization
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 13775554729
simulation, aiming at solving the problem that the water
E-mail address: lwjiangda@ujs.edu.cn
†
Recommended by Associate Editor Weon Gyu Shin pump has low efficiency in the cooling system of a turbo
© KSME & Springer 2017
2320 L. Wei et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 31 (5) (2017) 2319~2329

charged PFI (Port fuel injection) gasoline engine. Bo [10]

analyzed the dry burning reason according to current water
pump structure and proposed a pump house structure im-
provement plan with adding high pressure feedback back-
water hole. Hua [11] proposed an in-depth research on the
loss model of each component of pump based on hydraulic
loss method and put forward a performance prediction
model based on the results of three-dimensional numerical
simulation.
These researches imply that the performance of ECWP has
increasingly become the main emphasis of the study in the
field of modern vehicle engine cooling systems. However,
Fig. 1. Damaged automobile water pump model in durability experi-
various domestic and foreign experiments about common ment.
ECWP performance show that cavitation damage in the
ECWP is the key factor that shortens the reliability and life- mized models were designed on the basis of prototype pump.
span of the motor cooling system, as well as causes vibration Internal three-dimensional turbulent flow simulations in three
and noise. In the last century, the study of the internal pump models were conducted by using CFX computational fluid
cavitation was mainly from the macro analysis, the main dynamics software. The internal bubble volume fraction dis-
conclusions were as follow: The average bubble length is the tributions as well as the cavitation performance curves for
significant feature to describe the cavitation intensity, the each model were compared under the designed conditions,
destruction ability of cavitation on flow passage components and then the optimal model was chosen to pass the durability
depends on the blade geometry parameters, operating condi- experiment, the results are successful.
tions, materials and many other factors. Luo [12] applied two
numerical models to simulate the turbulent cavitation flows
2. Problems in the prototype model
inside a centrifugal pump to investigate the effect of calcula-
tion domain on the prediction accuracy of cavitation per- The prototype model of this study is WP7 diesel ECWP,
formance for hydraulic machines. Based on the bubble two- which is produced in Zhejiang. Durability experiments were
phase flow model, Tang [13] proposed a cavitation model performed according to the "automobile ECWP experiment
with thermodynamic effects for cavitation flows in a diffuser- methods" QC/T288.2-2001. In the durability experiment, se-
type centrifugal pump and conducted numerical simulations vere vibration and abnormal noise occurred after a period of
inside the entire passage of the centrifugal pump by using the operation, and serious erosion was found on the front volute
proposed cavitation model. Guo [14] investigated a high- wall, which is shown in Fig. 1.
speed centrifugal pump with a splitter-blade inducer, numeri- The study found that the blade of the unshrouded impeller
cally simulated the flow with rotating cavitation. Liu [15] without the front cover was in clearance fit with front volute
implemented two modified RNG k-epsilon models (DCM wall. The blade was made of phenolic resin with better cavita-
and FBM) in ANSYS-CFX 13.0 by second development tion performance, yet material of volute was cast aluminum
technology to verify the influence of a turbulence model on with relatively poor cavitation performance; the bubbles oc-
the simulation of unsteady attached sheet-cavitation flows in curred during the working process of ECWP. Along the flow
centrifugal pumps. The research results suggest that, for nu- direction, the pressure inside the impeller was gradually in-
merical prediction of cavitation flows in centrifugal pumps, creased. And when it reached a certain high pressure, the bub-
the turbulence model has little influence on the development ble shrank and collapsed rapidly, the surrounding liquid filled
of cavitation bubbles, but the advanced turbulence model can hole with high speed, and the whole process led to the forma-
significantly improve the prediction precision of head coeffi- tion of the impact. The mechanical action brought by bubble
cients and critical cavitation numbers. Liao [16] analyzed the collapse is the main reason for the abrasion on the cast alumi-
factors that cause cavitation in ECWP and stated the damage num pump wall. Operating constantly under cavitation condi-
of cavitation. Besides, the influences of rotation speed, flow tions will interrupt the liquid transfer process and affect the
rate and other parameters have on ECWP cavitation condi- normal operation of the cooling system. Further, it will cause
tions are also analyzed in this study. Thus, there are numer- the engine fail to offer efficient heat removal and then even
ous researches about cavitation in ordinary centrifugal pumps, cause damage. Since the volute and overall engine are both cast,
while research on ECWP under high temperature and pres- it is difficult in the process to change materials with better cavi-
sure is much less. There is no specific research on internal tation performance, which makes the prototype model far from
ECWP cavitation flow state, so the characteristics of its bub- customers’ requirement. Therefore, it is necessary to optimize
bles and the mechanism of cavitation inside the pump still the prototype model without changing the material. So, cavita-
need to be studied. tion performance needs to be improved to ensure the optimized
To improve the cavitation performance of ECP, three opti- model can pass the ECWP durability experiment.
 L. Wei et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 31 (5) (2017) 2319~2329 2321

Table 1. Design parameters of the prototype model.

Parameters Value
Flow rate (L/min) 285
Head (m) 14
Rotation speed (r/min) 3700
Outlet diameter (mm) 98
Inlet diameter (mm) 60
Outlet width (mm) 11
Blade inlet angle/° 37
Blade outlet angle (°) 30
(a) Bottom part of pump
Blade wrap angle (°) 45
Blade quantity 8

3. Optimization of the model pump

The working medium in this ECWP was 85 °C water, the
performance and basic geometric parameters of the pump are
shown in Table 1. Considering the special requirements of the
cylinder structure, craft and automobile engine, the design
methods of ECWP are somehow different from that of the
conventional centrifugal pumps.
ECWP requires making use of temperature difference con-
vection to achieve natural-convection recirculation even
when water pump fails to work, so spacious passages are (b) Upper part of pump
needed [17]. The process requirements include simple struc-
Fig. 2. Three-dimensional model of the prototype pump.
ture, manufacture convenience, so it can take mass produc-
tion simply. The impeller of the prototype ECWP has a rela-
tively wide outlet, and there is no front shroud on the un- and delays the impact of the cavitation on the pump charac-
shrouded impeller. The cross-section of the suction chamber teristics [19]. Moreover, the increase of the inclination at the
is annular with a diameter of 90 mm, while the volute cross- blade inlet can reduce the impact loss at the inlet and improve
sectional shape is approximately rectangular. The 3-D model the external characteristics of pump. The optimized model of
was created using the software Pro/E, and the assembly dia- case 1 is shown in Fig. 3(b).
gram of the model is shown in Fig. 2. The area from impeller Case 2: The quantity of blades is reduced from eight to
inlet region to the outlet volute entire flow channel is defined seven, based on case 1. The reduction of the blade quantity
as the computational domain [18]. The prototype pump is makes the excretion coefficient at the inlet drop and reduces
divided into two parts, including the upper and bottom parts. the inlet velocity, thereby improving the cavitation perform-
The bottom part of pump is cast together with the engine ance. The optimized model of case 2 is shown in Fig. 3(c).
block, impeller and the pulley is installed on the upper part of Case 3: Based on case 2 and keeping the blade quantity as
the pump. seven, the inlet diameter of the forward streamline is in-
Case 1: The impeller is modified based on the prototype creased, while the inlet diameter of the rear streamline and
pump. The blade wrap angle is changed from 45° to 65° the impeller inlet hub diameter are decreased. The pressure
while the blade inlet angle is reduced from 37° to 19°, and the drop of blade inlet is very sensitive to the shape of the blade.
blade inlet diameter is changed from 60 mm to 50 mm. By The thinner the thickness of the inlet blade is, the better cavi-
reducing inlet diameter, extending flow passage length, under tation performance is; the closer the blades to streamline are,
the premise of processing craft, sometimes extending blade to the better cavitation performance is; the further the distance
inlet and cutting thickness of blade, it can not only increase between the inlet and the position with maximum thickness is,
the stability of the head curve and cavitation performance, but the better cavitation performance is; the smaller the inlet
also reduce the liquid velocity at inlet cavitation. Increasing pressure drop is, the better cavitation performance is. The
the inclination along inlet of blade to ensure the radius of cavitation performance can also be improved by increasing
front shroud is the biggest one, because circumferential ve- the blade inlet flow area and decreasing the inlet velocity.
locity and relative velocity are proportional to the radius, so The model of case 3 is shown in Fig. 3(d). The geometry
the relative velocity here is also the biggest one. Under this parameters of the prototype impeller and three optimized
condition, cavitation can be controlled near the front shroud cases are listed in Table 2.
2322 L. Wei et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 31 (5) (2017) 2319~2329

Table 2. Comparison of impeller geometric parameters.

Wrap angle Front streamline inlet Back streamline inlet

Case Inlet angle (°) Outlet angle (°) Blade quantity
(°) diameter (mm) diameter (mm)
Prototype pump 37 30 45 8 61 61
Case 1 19 30 65 8 46.6 54
Case 2 19 30 65 7 46.6 54
Case 3 19 30 65 7 42.4 60

(a) Prototype (b) Case 1 (c) Case 2 (d) Case 3

Fig. 3. Three dimensional models of impeller.

(a) Inlet section (b) Impeller section (c) Outlet section

Fig. 4. Numerical calculation domains.

4. Numerical computation area. To make the mesh size has the smallest effect on the
calculation accuracy, a steady numerical simulation was usu-
4.1 Three-dimensional modeling
ally applied to calculate the pump head. When the cell quan-
Three numerical domains, including inlet section, outlet sec- tity of the mesh varies from 2.03 million to 2.67 million, the
tion and impeller section, were built by Pro/E software accord- change of the head remains smaller than 2 %, which indicates
ing to the given model. The domains are shown in Fig. 4. that the mesh meets the requirements of independence. The
meshes of the three regions are shown in Fig. 5. The Y-plus
value is controlled below 100 by adding the boundary layers
4.2 Meshing
on the surfaces of the walls and blades, and it meets the re-
The 3D meshes of the models were generated by using quirements for the k-ε model. The blade wall meshes are
commercial software ICEM, and the mesh sizes were set dif- shown in Fig. 6. The quantity of the meshes has little differ-
ferently according to the characteristics such as the surface ence between each other.
curvature. The mesh of the wall surface was encrypted, espe-
cially where the radius of curvature was larger. Mesh captured 4.3 Governing equations and boundary conditions
the main characteristics of the ECWP appearance, and the
cells on the boundary layers were arranged appropriately. The Three steady numerical simulations were conducted em-
domains were discretized as structured hexahedral meshes, ploying the time averaged N-S equation and the standard k-ε
and the final mesh quality of each area was higher than 0.3. turbulent model in ANSYS-CFX software. Inlet pressure was
The whole domain consisted of three parts, namely the suction set as inlet boundary condition and outlet mass flow was set as
chamber area, pressurized water chamber portion and the im- the outlet boundary condition. The critical cavitation point
peller region, which together formed the total flow passage was sought by changing the inlet pressure step by step. The
 L. Wei et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 31 (5) (2017) 2319~2329 2323

wall roughness was set as 10 μm, and the standard wall func- by one and head declined slightly compared with case 1. But
tion was chosen in the domain near the wall, and the wall no- with the decrease of the blade quantity, the internal impeller
slip boundary condition was set as adiabatic wall. The volume excretion coefficient decreased, and the efficiency in case 2
fraction of the water and the bubble were set as 1 and 0, re- increased. The impeller inlet shock loss in case 3 was reduced
spectively. Considering the applicability and accuracy for the while efficiency had a further rise.
software to handle the ECWP simulation, the temperature of To analyze effect of the optimization, the internal flow
the water and bubbles were both set as 25 °C, and the cavita- fields of four models were analyzed. The cross section z = 0
tion performance at 85 °C was estimated according to the (in cross-section of blade and the whole impeller pump) was
cavitation performance curve. taken as the research object to analyze the distribution of the
flow field under the design conditions.
Fig. 7 shows the static pressure distribution in the impeller
5. Prediction of external characteristics and analysis
cross section under the designed conditions; the inlet absolute
of internal flow field
pressure was standard atmospheric pressure (101 kPa). It can
The external characteristic numerical simulation of the de- be found that the impeller internal pressure is increasing from
sign operating points in prototype pump and other three cases the inlet to the outlet and reaches the maximum at the blade
were conducted. The results are shown in Table 3. outlet, the pressure at the pressure side is higher than that at
As shown in Table 3, compared with the prototype pump it the suction side, the static pressure reaches the minimum value
is found that head in three optimized models increased about at the position closed to the inlet of the suction side; due to the
34 %, 31 %, 23 % respectively, and efficiency in three opti- asymmetric structure of the pump chamber, the pressure dis-
mized models increased 3.7 %, 5.2 %, 5.6 %, respectively. All tribution in the impeller passage is asymmetric as well. Obvi-
three cases had improved hydraulic characteristics perform- ous low pressure area is found at the blade inlet of the proto-
ance. Particularly, the quantity of blades in case 2 was reduced type impeller and the cavitation is more prone to appear in the
low pressure area, which indicates that the cavitation perform-
Table 3. Comparison of external characteristics. ance of the optimized models is superior to that of the proto-
type pump, and case 3 is the best one among three models.
Flow rate Rotation speed Head Efficiency
Scheme
(L/min) (r/min) (m) (%)
Fig. 8 shows the turbulent energy distribution in the cross
section of pump under the designed conditions when the inlet
Prototype 285 3700 13.417 55.8
absolute pressure is standard atmospheric pressure (101 kPa).
Case 1 285 3700 18.001 59.5
In all models, the turbulent kinetic energy is relatively larger
Case 2 285 3700 17.690 61.1 in the inlet area, which indicates that there is some fluid shock
Case 3 285 3700 16.572 61.4 loss at the inlet vane; by comparing the results of four models

Fig. 5. Structured mesh for the numerical calculation domain.

(a) Prototype (b) Case 1 (c) Case 2 (d) Case 3

Fig. 6. Wall mesh models of four impellers.

2324 L. Wei et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 31 (5) (2017) 2319~2329

(a) Prototype (b) Case 1 (c) Case 2 (d) Case 3

Fig. 7. Static pressure distribution in the cross section of four models.

(a) Prototype (b) Case 1 (c) Case 2 (d) Case 3

Fig. 8. Turbulent kinetic energy distribution in cross section of four models.

18 case 1
the inlet turbulent kinetic energy in the prototype pump is case 2
significantly higher than in the other three optimized models,
case 3
indicating that extending the blade toward the inlet and in- 16
creasing the inclination can dramatically improve the flow
Head H/m

condition at the inlet and improve the external performance.

The turbulent kinetic energy in case 3 is relatively smaller 14
prototype
than that in other cases, which is consistent with the high effi-
ciency of case 3 shown in Table 3. 12

6. Analysis of cavitation performance 20 40 60 80 100 120

Inlet absolute pressure p/kPa
6.1 Prediction of cavitation performance
Fig. 9. Cavitation characteristic curves under design conditions.
According to the national standards, the operating point
where the head drops by three percent is usually considered as cates that the cavitation performance of the model in case 3
the critical point of pump cavitation. Cavitation deteriorates has been significantly improved. The saturated vapor pressure
with the decrease of the pressure inlet pressure. Table 2 shows difference between 25 °C and 85 °C is 54.63 kPa. Ignoring the
that the simulated heads in four models under design condi- influence of the temperature on the water density and the ef-
tions are, respectively, 13.417 m, 18.001 m, 17.69 m and fect of the thermodynamic temperature promotion or inhibi-
16.572 m; correspondingly, the critical cavitation points in tion to the cavitation, the critical NPSH at other temperatures
four models are, respectively, 13.015 m, 17.461 m, 17.168 m can be similarly calculated by adding the difference of the two
and 16.075 m. The cavitation performance curves of four saturated vapor pressures to the current NPSH value. There-
models under design condition are shown in Fig. 9. It can be fore, the critical NPSH value of the prototype pump under
found that the critical cavitation point of four models are about 85 °C is 105.9 kPa; in case 1 that is 88.04 kPa, in case 2 that is
51.27 kPa, 33.41 kPa, 31.3 kPa and 29.04 kPa (absolute pres- 85.93 kPa, in case 3 that is 83.67 kPa. Compared with the
sure), respectively, with the case 3 the smallest, which indi- prototype pump, the critical points of cavitation in the three
 L. Wei et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 31 (5) (2017) 2319~2329 2325

(a) Prototype (b) Case 1 (c) Case 2 (d) Case 3

Fig. 10. Bubble volume concentration distribution in the cross section of four models with 40 kPa inlet absolute pressure.

(a) Prototype (b) Case 1 (c) Case 2 (d) Case 3

Fig. 11. Bubble volume concentration distribution in the cross section of four models with 30 kPa inlet absolute pressure.

optimized cases are reduced by 1.786 m, 1.997 m and 2.223 m, cavitation is more likely to occur; for case 1, the bubble vol-
respectively. It can be inferred from the numerical simulation ume concentration increases with the increase of the inlet
results that, under the condition of 85 °C relatively severe pressure; the bubble volume concentration at blade inlet in the
cavitation has already occurred in the prototype pump when prototype model is much larger than the other optimized mod-
the gauge pressure is zero, which further indicates that cavita- els. While in case 3, the bubble volume concentration at blade
tion damage is the main reason for damage of the pump dur- inlet is the smallest one, which indicates that the cavitation
ing the durability experiment. In other three optimized models, performance in case 3 has been improved significantly. Con-
the operating points are far from the critical points of the cavi- sidering Figs. 9-11 together and compared to prototype pump,
tation at zero gauge pressure. it can be found that case 3 has the best cavitation performance
among three optimized models; moreover, the efficiency of
the model 3 is improved obviously. Comprehensively, the
6.2 Distribution of bubble volume fraction
optimization in case 3 is the optimal one.
Bubbles are the most intuitive phenomenon of cavitation,
and the larger the volume fraction of bubbles is, the serious
7. Analysis of cavitation performance under three
the cavitation is. Figs. 10 and 11 illustrate the bubble volume
different impeller diameters
concentration distribution in the cross section of four models
with 40 kPa and 30 kPa inlet absolute pressures. As can be The optimal model was selected by comparing three opti-
seen, due to the asymmetry in the pumping chamber, the pres- mized models, in which the efficiency and cavitation perform-
sure distribution in impeller passages is asymmetric at differ- ance were improved significantly. According to the custom-
ent positions of the same radius, and the bubble distribution ers’ requirements, the head under design conditions is 14 m,
inside the impeller is also asymmetric; the bubble volume and the simulated head in three models increased from
concentration on the blade suction side near the inlet reached 13.417 m to 16.572 m after the optimization. In external char-
the maximum value, indicating that in this low pressure area acteristic experiment, the actual head under design conditions
2326 L. Wei et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 31 (5) (2017) 2319~2329

of the optimal model was 15.2 m, slightly higher than ex- Fig. 13 shows 10 % bubble volume concentration distribu-
pected. In engineering, it is common to meet the requirements tion in the impeller with 98 mm diameter under different inlet
of design parameters by cutting the impeller. If impeller is cut, pressures. As can be seen, when the inlet absolute pressure is
it will have a great impact on cavitation performance of the 58.7 kPa, small bubbles appear in the low pressure area at the
ECWP; cavitation performance of impellers with different impeller inlet, and inception cavitation happens. When inlet
diameters was studied. Based on the optimized model in case absolute pressure is decreased, NPSH will decrease, bubble
3, the impeller diameter (which is 98 in case 3) was reduced distribution area expands and extends gradually from the back
by 2 mm and 4 mm, respectively, while keeping other pa- to working side of the blade, so the cavitation has developed.
rameters constant. Then the cavitation performance under When inlet absolute pressure decreases until below the critical
rated conditions (Qopt = 285 L/min, n = 3700 r/min) of the point of cavitation (absolute pressure about 34.7 kPa), a sig-
impellers with three different diameters was compared. nificant increase in the quantity of bubbles occurs and low
Cavitation performance among different impeller diameters pressure area in the pump expands gradually, bubbles begin to
at the design conditions was numerically simulated, respec- block the entire passage of impeller. The impeller is struck
tively, and is shown in Fig. 12. In the figure, impeller outer intensively by the bubble impulsion, and cavitation damage
diameters are, respectively, 98 mm, 96 mm, 94 mm, the criti- occurs, causing significant decline in external characteristic
cal cavitation pressure, are, respectively, about 29.04 kPa, curves [20].
32.96 kPa, 34.35 kPa (absolute pressure), and the critical cavi- Fig. 14 shows 10 % bubble volume concentration distribu-
tation pressure is the smallest when impeller diameter is 98 tion of three different impeller diameters. Research shows that
mm. According to the simulation and analysis results of cavi- the bubble distributions in impellers with different diameters
tation performance, a preliminary view suggests that with the have the same tendency. However, with the reduction of the
decrease of ECWP impeller diameter, the critical NPSH in- impeller diameter, the 10 % bubble volume concentration
creases and the cavitation performance deteriorates. distribution area expands gradually under the same inlet pres-
sure. Furthermore, the bubble area inside the impeller with 98
16.5 d2 = 98 mm mm diameter appears in the latest time under the same inlet
total pressure, which implies that the impeller with 98 mm
16.0
diameter has the best cavitation performance. And these
15.5 analysis results are also consistent with the cavitation per-
d2 = 96 mm
Head H/m

15.0 formance curves.

14.5
d2 = 94 mm 8. Experiments
14.0

13.5 8.1 Experimental rig

20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110
To verify the reliability and accuracy of simulation method,
Inlet absolute pressure p/kPa
the optimized model in case 3 was processed into products
Fig. 12. Cavitation performances with different impeller diameter. and then sent to laboratory to have the external characteristic

Pin = 58.7 kPa Pin = 38.7 kPa Pin = 34.7 kPa

Fig. 13. 10 % bubble volume concentration distribution with 98 mm impeller diameter.

d = 98 mm d = 96 mm d = 94 mm

Fig. 14. 10 % bubble distribution with 58.7 kPa inlet pressure.

 L. Wei et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 31 (5) (2017) 2319~2329 2327

(a) Impeller (b) Inlet section (c) Assembly

Fig. 15. Experiment pump and experiment rig.

100 20
90 18
80 16
70 14
Efficiency h/%

60 12 Head H/m
50 10
40 8
30 Simulation head 6
Experimental head
20 4
Simulation efficiency
10 Experimental efficiency 2
0 0
100 150 200 250 300 350 (a) Prototype pump
Flow Q/(L/min)

Fig. 16. Results comparison between experimental and simulation.

experiment and durability experiment. The impeller, inlet

section and assembly are shown in Fig. 15. Experimental rig
and measurement methods are the same as that in Ref. [21].
The main technical parameters of the laboratory table are as
follow: Rotation speed is less than or equal to 8000 r/min, the
water temperature is less than or equal to 120 °C, the experi-
ment flow is less than or equal to 400 L/min. The inlet and
outlet pressure, the water temperature are measured by the (b) Case 3
sensor with a first-class accuracy, temperature is controlled by
the PID regulator. Fig. 17. Comparison of durability experiment.

prototype model, case 3 was taken to have a durability ex-

8.2 Analysis
periment on the same stage according to "Experiment method
The numerical simulation and the experimental results of for automotive ECWP" QC/T288.2-2001. Fig. 17(a) is the
the head and efficiency are compared in Fig. 16. It is found prototype pump after the 800 h durability experiment, Fig.
that head and efficiency of numerical simulation are both 17(b) is the optimized model of case 3 after 1500 h durability
higher than that of experimental data. Three main reasons may experiment. It can be seen that the prototype pump has already
responsible for this deviation: firstly, the volume loss of the suffered serious cavitation erosion, while the optimized model
pump was ignored during the modeling process; secondly, the of case 3 is still almost the same as before, which implies that
experiment tests performance of whole pumping system, the cavitation performance of the optimized model of case 3
while simulation only calculate performance of the pump, and has great improvement.
losses in the pipelines are ignored; also, as a result of the limi-
tations of the casting process, there are some small differences
9. Conclusions
between the numerical model and the real pump. But in gen-
eral, the simulation results agree well with experimental re- (1) The whole flow field of ECWP was numerical simulated
sults with acceptable error, which indicates that numerical by using software CFX; the numerical results are in accor-
methods are reliable. dance with the experimental results, which shows that the
To prove cavitation performance of case 3 is better than the numerical results are reliable. By observing the distribution of
2328 L. Wei et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 31 (5) (2017) 2319~2329

cavitation flow in impeller of ECWP, the main erosion parts on CFD, J. of Drainage and Irrigation Machinery Engineer-
that occur cavitation between impeller and passage, the seri- ing, 30 (2) (2012) 176-180.
ousness of cavitation damage to both can be found intuitively. [4] S. Duplaa, O. Coutier-Delgosha, A. Dazin, O. Roussette, G.
Therefore, numerical calculation can be used as an effective Bois and G. Caignaert, Experimental study of a cavitating
method to analyze and predict the external characteristics and centrifugal pump during fast startups, J. of Fluids
cavitation characteristics of ECWP. Engineering, 132 (2) (2012) 365-368.
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the optimized models were predicted by the numerical simula- experimental investigations on the cavitation characteristics
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ble distribution of three models of ECWP with different im- versity (2014).
peller diameters, it is found that the critical cavitation pressure [8] D. H. Sheng, H. L. Cui, H. Li and C. Y. Fu, Design and test
increased with the decrease of the impeller diameter. The research on electronic pump cooling system of engine, Fluid
smaller impeller diameter leads to even worse cavitation per- Machinery, 40 (4) (2012) 5-9.
formance. Therefore, after ensuring the cavitation perform- [9] Y. Yang, W. P. Jiang, K. Yang, X. D. Chen, T. G. Hu, R.
ance of the ECWP and taking into account the influence of the Xie and L. Y. Gong, Optimum design of automobile water
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[10] Y. Bo and B. W. Li, Auto Water pump structural
development and heat dissipation effect research based on
Acknowledgment
Pump Linx, Equipment Manufacturing Technology, 1 (2016)
The work was sponsored by the National Natural Science 40-42.
Foundation of China (No. 51409127), PAPD, Six Talents [11] L. Hua, The study of characteristics prediction of car
Peak Project of Jiangsu Province (No.HYZB-002), Key R & pumps based on hydraulic loss model, Doctoral Dissertation,
D projects in Jiangsu Province (BE2015119, BE2015001-4), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (2012).
the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No. [12] X. W. Luo, W. Wei, B. Ji, Z. B. Pan, W. C. Zhou and H. Y.
BK20161472), Scientific Research Start Foundation Project of Xu, Comparison of cavitation prediction for a centrifugal
Jiangsu University (No.13JDG105). pump with or without volute casing, J. of Mechanical Sci-
ence and Technology, 27 (6) (2013) 1643-1648.
[13] X. L. Tang, L. Y. Bian, F. J. Wang, X. Q. Li and M. Hao,
Nomenclature------------------------------------------------------------------------
Numerical investigations on cavitating flows with
H : Head of pump, m thermodynamic effects in a diffuser-type centrifugal pump, J.
h : Efficiency of pump, % of Mechanical Science and Technology, 27 (6) (2013) 1655-
n : Rotation speed, r/min 1664.
Q : Flow of pump, L/min [14] X. M. Guo, L. H. Zhu, Z. C. Zhu, B. L. Cui and Y. Li,
Qopt : Rated flow conditions, L/min Numerical and experimental investigations on the cavitation
Pin : Inlet pressure of pump, kPa characteristics of a high-speed centrifugal pump with a
d : Outlet diameter, mm splitter-blade inducer, J. of Mechanical Science and Tech-
nology, 29 (1) (2015) 259-267.
[15] H. L. Liu, Y. Wang, D. X. Liu, S. Q. Yuan and J. Wang,
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