Investigation of NPSH variation of suction pumps during low and high tides in Abadan water pump station .

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Mahdi Mahmoudi Sabouki, Seyed Saied Bahrainian

Thursday 2 july 2015

11:30 - 11:45h at South America (level 0)

Themes: (T) Water engineering, (ST) Hydraulic machinery and industrial flows

Parallel session: 11C. Engineering - Industrial

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This paper attempts to numerically analyze the NPSH performance of suction pumps in Abadan water pump station during low and high tides of Bahmanshir river. This river due to its connection with Persian Golf in south of Iran has low and high tides. During low tides, suction side pressure of pumps highly decreases and results in occurrence of cavitation phenomenon for most cases studied. To investigate the cavitation phenomenon, it is necessary to study the NPSH performance of the pumps. For this purpose, water elevations of Bahmanshir river during a full year have been measured. These measurements are used in a numerical simulation to solve the Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations and VOF multiphase model. Simulation results reveal that filters installed on the inlet of suction pipe highly reduces the suction side pressure of the pumps. Furthermore, during the river low tides, the amount of available NPSH are lower than the required NPSH and result in occurrence of cavitation in pumps suction side.