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Quasi-3D hydraulic design in the application of an LNG cryogenic submerged

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Article  in  Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering · February 2016

DOI: 10.1016/j.jngse.2015.12.022

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 Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 29 (2016) 89e100

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jngse

Quasi-3D hydraulic design in the application of an LNG cryogenic

submerged pump
Jinya Zhang a, b, *, Cong Xu a, Yongxue Zhang a, b, Xin Zhou a
a
College of Mechanical and Transportation Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China
b
Beijing Key Laboratory of Process Fluid Filtration and Separation, Beijing 102249, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Liquefied natural gas (LNG) cryogenic submerged pumps are important transmission devices in LNG
Received 27 October 2015 terminals and filling stations. In this study, the impeller of a two-stage LNG submerged pump was
Received in revised form designed by the quasi-3D hydraulic design method based on the S1 and S2 relative stream surfaces
15 December 2015
theory. In the design procedure, the finite element method (FEM) with a quadrilateral nine-node element
Accepted 16 December 2015
Available online 20 December 2015
was adopted for the S1 stream surfaces calculation, and the quasi-orthogonal method was used for the
average S2 stream surface calculation. The flow field was obtained by the iterative computations of S1 and
S2 stream surfaces. Given a reasonable velocity moment distribution along streamlines considered
Keywords:
LNG submerged pump
cavitation, the blade drawing was realized by iterating the camber lines and circulation equations on an
Hydraulic design average S2 stream surface. Moreover, a steady numerical simulation of the designed pump was con-
Quasi-3D ducted. The simulation result showed that the head of the designed pump was 260.15 m and the effi-
Cavitation ciency was 62.82% at the designed flow rate condition. The net positive suction head required (NPSHr) at
Hydraulic performance the conditions with 0.9 Q0, 1.0 Q0 and 1.1 Q0 were, respectively, 1.69 m, 2.54 m and 3.12 m, which met the
industrial needs. Furthermore, both the cavitation and hydraulic performance of an impeller designed by
the method presented in this study were better than those of an impeller which was designed by the
two-dimensional method.
© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction pump. Thus, it is important to improve the cavitation performance

With the rapid development of the LNG industry, LNG sub-
merged pumps are widely used (Coyle and Patel, 2005; Lovelady,
2008) in the entire LNG industry chain (e.g., large LNG storage
tanks, LNG ships and LNG receiving terminals). Currently, re-
searches around the world have been working on several types of
cryogenic pumps such as high-pressure cryogenic pumps, liquid
nitrogen or helium cryogenic pumps and cryogenic submerged
pumps (Brailovskii, 2000; Vaghela et al., 2012; Zhu et al., 2012). For
the LNG industry, Rush et al. (Rush and Hall, 2001) introduced
different types of LNG pumps and their selection principles for the
LNG industry chain. An LNG submerged pump is a low-specific-
speed centrifugal pump that has a significant hydraulic loss and
low efficiency. Moreover, LNG, which is a pump medium, easily
leads to cavitation that significantly affects the performance of a
* Corresponding author. College of Mechanical and Transportation Engineering,
China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China.
E-mail address: zhjinya@163.com (J. Zhang).
of an LNG pump.
Studies show that the flow uniformity at the impeller entrance
is a major factor that improves cavitation performance of a pump
(Balasubramanian et al., 2011; Luo et al., 2008). In addition, the
leading edge shape of a blade affects the cavitation performance of
an impeller. A reasonable velocity moment distribution is needed
to ensure that the blade inlet section shape is appropriate to avoid
cavitation (Zhang et al., 2012; Song et al., 2015). Zhang (Zhang et al.,
2011) proposed a four-order polynomial to describe the velocity
moment distribution along the blade streamline. The distribution
was controlled by one parameter. Three distribution types were
produced that were named as ‘S’ type, inverse ‘S’ type and ‘L’ type.
The results showed that the impeller with an ‘S’ type velocity
moment distribution had higher efficiency and smoother blade
surface loading than those of other two types. Ma (Ma et al., 2013)
designed three impellers using three different velocity moment
distribution functions t. Numerical simulations of the three im-
pellers showed that the distribution of the velocity moment along
the blade had a great impact on the blade loading distribution,

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jngse.2015.12.022
1875-5100/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
90 J. Zhang et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 29 (2016) 89e100
blade shape, hydraulic and cavitation performances. Both the
loading distribution uniformity along the blade streamline and the
loading reduction of the blade leading edge ensured a high effi-
ciency and a better anti-cavitation performance.
In some pump design theories, the quasi-3D flow theory does
not adopt an infinite number of blades assumption (Wu, 1952). In
comparison with the 1D or 2D flow theory, the quasi-3D flow
theory reflects the actual flow more accurately and eliminates the
extreme dependence on the designers' experience (Luo et al., 2012).
In recent years, the application of the quasi-3D flow theory in
mixed flow and centrifugal impellers has made some progress.
Through the iteration calculation between S1 and S2 stream sur-
faces and the adjustment of the velocity moment distribution, Bing
(Bing and Cao, 2013) designed a mixed flow pump impeller with
good hydraulic and cavitation performances. Jin et al. (Jin et al.,
2012) designed a mixed-flow water-jet pump that had better hy-
draulic performance in a wider flow rate range by adopting the
iteration method between the 3D inverse problem design and
direct problem calculation. Yu et al. (Yu et al., 2006) conducted a
hydraulic design of a rotodynamic multiphase pump using a com-
bined approach of inverse design and computational fluid dy-
namics (CFD) analysis. Tan (Tan et al., 2012) developed a combined
direct and inverse iterative design method for the hydraulic design
of centrifugal pump impellers.
In this study, a two-stage LNG submerged pump impeller was
designed by the quasi-3D hydraulic design method based on the S1
and S2 stream surface theory. During the hydraulic design, the ve-
locity moment distribution of impeller blades was designed as ‘S’
type to obtain good cavitation performance. Finally, for analyzing
the hydraulic and cavitation performance, the entire flow passage
of the two-stage LNG submerged pump was numerically simulated.
2. Theory based on two types of relative stream surfaces
A theory, which is based on two types of relative stream sur-
faces, was presented by Wu. Its basic idea is dimensionality
reduction (Wu, 1952). According to the theory, a number of relative
stream surfaces are selected to represent the three dimensional
flow fields. Some basic equations on the two types of relative
stream surfaces are established to solve the three dimensional
problem. Based on this method, the fluid flow problem in a three-
dimensional space is changed into a problem in some two-
dimensional spaces. Therefore, it is easier to obtain the solution,
and the calculation is simplified.
The two types of relative stream surfaces include the S1 and S2
D
S1 Stream
Surface
C
A
B
O O
(a) S1 Stream Surface
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the S1 and S2 stream surfaces.
stream surfaces. An S1 stream surface is composed of a series of
streamlines that flow across a circumference at the front of a
cascade or in the cascade. As shown in Fig. 1 (a), the AB line is along
the peripheral direction at the cascade entrance. Then, the ABCD
face, which is constituted by all the streamlines those flows across
the AB line, is an S1 stream surface. As this definition, both internal
surfaces of the front and the back covers of the centrifugal pump
impeller are two S1 stream surfaces. An S2 stream surface is
composed of a series of streamlines which flow across a line along
the radial direction at the front of cascade or in the cascade. As
shown in Fig. 1 (b), the MN line is along the radial direction at the
cascade entrance. Then, the MNPQ face, which is constituted by all
streamlines of a relative motion flow across the MN line, is an S2
stream surface. As this definition, the pressure side and the suction
side of a blade are the two S2 stream surfaces. According to the
definition mentioned above, the two relative stream surface types
(S1 and S2) can be described as follows. An S1 stream surface re-
sembles a surface of revolution, and an S2 stream surface resembles
a middle surface of a blade.
Both S1 and S2 stream surfaces are the space surfaces. The iter-
ative computation between S1 and S2 stream surfaces is adopted to
solve three dimensional flow fields. The convergence criterion is
whether the solutions of intersecting lines between S1 and S2
stream surfaces are similar. The intersecting lines are streamlines
with a relative motion flow in a three-dimensional flow field. Flow
parameters for a three-dimensional flow field are unique. Thus, the
theory, which is based on two types of relative stream surfaces,
solves a three dimensional flow field using a series of two dimen-
sional flow fields. In addition, to enhance the accuracy of the three
dimensional flow field calculation result, many S1 and S2 stream
surfaces are needed. The result obtained, which is based on S1 and
S2 stream surfaces described above, is the full-3D solution.
To decrease the computational work, the average S2 stream
surface, which is the middle stream surface between two adjacent
blades, is selected to present all S2 stream surfaces. S1 stream sur-
faces are simplified as a series of revolution surfaces that are sha-
ped by rotating meridian streamlines on the average S2 stream
surface with a rotation axis. The result based on S1 and average S2
stream surfaces is called a quasi-3D solution.
3. Quasi-3D hydraulic design procedure
The flow chart of quasi-3D hydraulic design method is shown in
Fig. 2. Firstly, empirical formulas are used to obtain basic impeller
structural parameters and to generate the initial meridional flow
P S2 Stream
Surface
Q
M
N
(b) S2 Stream Surface
 J. Zhang et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 29 (2016) 89e100 91

Fig. 2. Flow chart of the quasi-3D hydraulic design.

channel. Secondly, the initial impeller is designed based on the 3.1. Meridional flow channel design
hydraulic design method of velocity coefficients. The initial S1 and
average S2 stream surfaces are obtained from the initial impeller. According to the desired operating conditions (flow rate, head,
Next, the initial impeller is iteratively calculated by a quasi-3D flow rotational speed), the basic geometrical features of the initial
algorithm. At the beginning of iteration, S1 stream surfaces are impeller are determined by empirical correlations that are based on
conformally transformed to 2D planes. Then, the flow fields are the velocity coefficient method.
numerically calculated by the finite element method with a quad- A meridional section profile of impeller is generated with four
rilateral nine-node element with the Kutta condition restriction at curves: inlet, outlet, shroud and hub (Zhou et al., 2012). Bezier
the blade outlet. The relative velocity and pressure coefficient dis-
tributions of S1 stream surfaces are exported as calculation results.
Following this, the average S2 stream surface is rebuilt with the
intermediate streamline method based on the calculation result of
S1 stream surfaces. Then, the flow field of the average S2 stream
surface is numerically calculated by the quasi-orthogonal method.
Following this, new S1 stream surfaces are rebuilt based on the new
flow net. The flow condition is used to determine whether the
calculation of S2 stream surface is convergent. According to this
loop, iterative calculations are carried out between the S1 and
average S2 stream surfaces until the convergence condition is
satisfied. Finally, the impeller is gained after the blade drawing,
which considers a reasonable velocity moment distribution, blade
thickening and leading edge smoothing.

Fig. 3. Meridional profile of the impeller.

92 J. Zhang et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 29 (2016) 89e100

curves controlled by four points are used to draw the profile lines of
hub and shroud, respectively, as shown in Fig. 3. Firstly, the co- v v
ðH V Þ  ðH V Þ ¼ 0 (2)
ordinates of points E1, F1, E5 and F5 are fixed due to the basic vq3 1 1 vq1 3 3
structure size of the impeller. Assuming that the fluid flowed into
the impeller along axial direction, the tangents of contours at
points E1 and F1 are parallel to the axial direction to reduce inci-
dence losses of inflow. Then, while holding the straight line of
points E1, E2 and E3 in the direction parallel to the Z-axis, the po- 3.2.2. Solution on S1 stream surface
sition of E3 is controlled by changing the angle :a1. Furthermore, As the flow at the entrance of an impeller is irrotational, there is
the proportional coefficients m1 ¼ E1 E2 and m2 ¼ E3 E4 are defined to a potential function 4 which satisfies V ¼ V4. Transform the po-
E1 E3 E3 E5
determine the positions of points E2 and E4. By the above tential function to the plane coordinates from the cylindrical-
mentioned method, the curve of the hub is freely adjusted. Simi- coordinate system by conformal mapping (shown as Fig. 5). The
larly, the curve of the shroud is controlled by the angle :a2 and the relevant potential function of S1 stream surface in plane co-
ordinates is:
proportional coefficients n1 ¼ F1 F2 and n2 ¼ F3 F4 .
F1 F3 F3 F5
8    
< v h v4 þ v h v4 ¼ 0
>
vx vx vy vy (3)
>
:
h ¼ hðyÞ

3.2. Calculation of meridional flow field The potential function of S1 stream surfaces is solved by the
finite-element method. The quadrilateral parametric unit with nine
3.2.1. Basic equations of the S1 stream surface nodes (as shown in Fig. 6) is adopted to discrete the solution region.
For a centrifugal impeller in a quasi-3D flow calculation, the The shape function of the above mentioned quadrilateral para-
basic assumptions are listed as follows. 1) The average S2 stream metric unit is:
surface is simplified as a center flow surface between two adjacent
blade surfaces. 2) S1 stream surfaces are simplified as a series of 1h   ih
Ni ¼ ð1 þ xi xÞxi x þ 2 1  x2i 1  x2 ð1 þ zi zÞzi z
rotation surfaces formed by meridional streamlines in the average 4
  i
S2 stream surface. As shown in Fig. 4, q1 is the meridional þ 2 1  z2i 1  z2 (4)
streamline, q1 ¼ const is a rotation surface with a flow cross-section
line as its mother line, q2 is the flow cross-section line, q2 ¼ const is
where, i ¼ 1,2…9
a rotary surface that uses a meridional streamline as its mother line,
The thickness of S1 stream surfaces is:
q3 is the circumferential coordinate line, q3 ¼ const is ameridional
plane. Assuming that the S1 stream surfaces flow are irrotational,
X
9
the flow control equations under the orthogonal curvilinear co- hðyÞ ¼ Ni ðx; zÞhi (5)
ordinates are as follows: i¼1
Continuity Equation:
After the 4 value of each Gaussian point is solved, the velocity of
v v each Gaussian point can be obtained. Then, the velocity of each
ðH H V Þ þ ðH H V Þ ¼ 0 (1) element node can be gained by interpolation function. Finally, the
vq1 2 3 1 vq3 2 1 3
velocity of each mesh node is obtained from the average of all
Irrotational Flow Condition: relative element nodes.

Fig. 4. Stream surfaces in an impeller.

 J. Zhang et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 29 (2016) 89e100 93

Fig. 5. The S1 stream surfaces before and after conformal mapping.

Fig. 6. The quadrilateral parametric unit with nine nodes.

3.2.3. Basic equation of the S2 stream surface

For the S2 stream surface flow is averaged, the given flow is the W$n ¼ 0 (9)
condition of axisymmetric flow (v/vq3 ≡ 0). By solving the gov-
erning equations on the average S2 stream surface, the camber line
distribution of the blade is determined, and the flow control
equations under orthogonal curvilinear coordinates are as follows: 3.2.4. Solution on S2 stream surface
Continuity Condition: For the solution of flow in the average S2 stream surface, the
blade region and the non-blade region are considered respectively.
v v The quasi orthogonal line l is introduced to solve the S2 stream
ðtW1 H2 H3 Þ þ ðtW2 H1 H3 Þ ¼ 0 (6) surface.
vq1 vq2
The angles in Fig. 7 are as follows.
As the q1 and q2 is orthogonal, so, W2 ¼ Wn ¼ 0. With the 8
assumption of S1 stream surfaces are a series of rotation surfaces, >
> vr vZ
>
> sin g ¼ ¼
W1 ¼ Wm, W3 ¼ Wq. >
> H vq H vq2
>
>
1 1 2
Motion Equation: >
>
>
> vr vZ
>
< cos g ¼ H vq ¼ H vq
2 2 1 1
W  ðV  VÞ ¼ F þ VEr (7) (10)
>
> H dq
>
> 1 1
Mass force perpendicular to the flow surface: > sin d ¼ dl
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> H dq
: cos d ¼ 2 2
Fn¼0 (8) dl
Relative velocity is tangent to the flow surface: By transforming the basic equation on S2 stream surface to the
94 J. Zhang et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 29 (2016) 89e100

Fig. 7. Geometry relationship on S2 stream surface after introduction of quasi orthogonal line.

meridional velocity gradient equation along arbitrary quasi- The above meridional velocity gradient equations can be
orthogonal line, the meridional velocity gradient equation in the dispersed by Trapezoid Formula. The constant of integration in the
blade region can be obtained as: equations is determined according to the flow rate conditions.

dV1 C 3.3. Blade drawing

¼ AV1 þ B þ (11)
dl V1
    After the iterative calculation of S1 and S2 stream surfaces, the
where; A ¼  1
2  1 vt þ sin g
þ 1 dg sin d þ r 2dq vq shape of the blade camber lines was obtained by the iterative so-
t vm r cos d dl dl vm
vq
lution of both the camber line differential equation and the circu-
1þ rvm
lation differential equation of the S2 stream surface.
     
vg vq dq v 2 vq vq d r 2 vq The camber lines equation of the average S2 stream surface is
þcos1 g vm 1 þ r 2 sin d dq
dl vm
þ dl vm
r vm  vm dl vm written as equation (13).
 
vq cosðg  dÞ C ¼
B¼ 2ur 2 dqdl
sin g  vm 2ur 2 dE
dl
r
dq V r þ ur 2
1þ vq
r vm 1þ vq
r vm ¼ 3 (13)
dm V1 r 2
The meridional velocity gradient equation in the non-blade re-
The circulation differential equation of the average S2 stream
gion is:
surface is written as equation (14).

dV1 C dðV3 rÞ V1 r 2
¼ AV1 þ (12) ¼ Tðq1 ; q2 Þ (14)
dl V1 dq2 V3 r þ ur 2
  In the formula, the function T(q1,q2) is determined by the
vg dðrV3 Þ
sin d  sinr g sin d, C ¼ r uþrV
2
where, A ¼ cos1 d vm  dg
dl r2
3
dl
þ dE
dl
r
. meridional flow field, and it is written as equation (15).

    
vg 1 vg 1 sin g 1 vt dW1 1 dEr dl
Tðq1 ; q2 Þ ¼ W1  þ þ sin d  þ (15)
H1 vq1 cos d dl cos d r t H2 vq2 dl W1 dq2 dq2
 J. Zhang et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 29 (2016) 89e100 95

Table 1
Geometrical parameters of the impeller.

Parameter Value

Inlet diameter 195.5 mm

Diameter 355 mm
Blade number 7
Outlet width 25 mm
Outlet setting angle 26
Wrapping angle 135

ðV3 $rÞ ¼ ðV3 $rÞin þ f ðxÞ$DðV3 $rÞ (17)

where, D(V3$r) is the difference of velocity moment between blade

inlet (V3r)in and outlet (V3r)out, DðV3 $rÞ ¼ ðV3 $rÞout  ðV3 $rÞin ¼ gH
uh,
f(x) is a dimensionless function of velocity moment distribution.
0  f(x)  1.
The distribution function, which was assumed as a quartic
polynomial function in this study, was used to control the spiral
shape of blade.
Fig. 8. Velocity moment distribution of the designed impeller.
f ðxÞ ¼ ax4 þ bx3 þ cx2 þ dx þ e (18)
In equation (18), x ¼ l/l0 is the relative length of meridional
streamline in the blade region. Furthermore, a, b, c, d and e are the
8 coefficients that meet the following conditions.
>
> V3 r þ ur 2
>
<A ¼ At the inlet and the outlet blade edges, the exact values of the
V1 r 2
With setting that ; the equations (13) and (14) velocity moments are f(0)¼0 and f(1)¼1.
>
>
: B ¼ Tðq1 ; q2 Þ
> To reduce the incidence loss at the inlet edge and to prevent
A cavitation, df =dx x¼0 ¼ 0.
are changed as the types of difference quotient: At the outlet blade edge, the exact value of P is given. Thus,
df =dx x¼1 ¼ p. According to references (Zhang et al., 2011; Ma et al.,
8 2013), a blade designed by velocity moment distributions of ‘S’-
>
>
qi;j  qi1;j 1

>
> ¼ A þ Ai1;j type has good cavitation performance. Thus, the value of P is 0 in
< mi;j  mi1;j 2 i;j
this study according to the Kutta-Joukowsky condition.
(16)
>
> ðV3 $rÞi;j  ðV3 $rÞi;j1 1
 According to the characteristics of blade that works in a fluid,
>
> ¼ B þ Bi;j1
: ðq2 Þj  ðq2 Þj1 2 i;j the df =dx

 0 on the blade area.
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi x2½0;1
bþ b þ2$½ðq2 Þj ðq2 Þj1 $ðV1 $r Þi;j $Ti;j
2 2
Fig. 8 shows the velocity moment distribution of the impeller
Then, Ai;j ¼ 2$ðV1 $r 2 Þi;j
where, b ¼ ðV3 $rÞi;j1 þ
that was designed in this study.
0:5$½ðq2 Þj  ðq2 Þj1 $Bi;j1  ðu$r2 Þi;j
To draw the blade, a reasonable velocity moment distribution of
the hub and shroud is needed to calculate blade wrapping angles at 3.4. Hydraulic design result of the impeller
each point with equations (13) and (14). The velocity moment
distribution along the hub or shroud is given as equation (17). After drawing the blade, the blade was thickened along the

Fig. 9. Model of the designed impeller and its blade.

96 J. Zhang et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 29 (2016) 89e100

Fig. 10. Calculation domain and grids.

meridional surface streamline. Additionally, the blade leading and Fig. 9.

trailing edges were made round with the Bezier curve. To reduce
incidence loss, the blade inlet position was properly twisted and
bowed. As the procedure mentioned above, a set of computer code
was written with Cþþ language by authors to iterate the S1 and S2
stream surfaces calculation and get the blade geometry as shown in
260
The parameters of hydraulic design of the two-stage LNG pump
employed in this study were as follows: the rotational speed
n ¼ 2900 rpm; the design flow rate Q0 ¼ 400 m3/h; head H ¼ 255 m.
The medium properties were: density r ¼ 455 kg/m3 and viscosity
m ¼ 0.139 cP. The hydraulic design parameters, medium properties,
and geometrical parameters of the impeller of the LNG submerged
pump that was designed by the above mentioned method are
100 shown in Table 1.

255 90
4. Numerical simulation of the designed pump
250
80
4.1. Computational model and grid
245
Head (m)

Efficiency (%)

70 The calculation domain of LNG pump in this study is shown in

240 Fig. 10. It consists of one inducer, two same impellers and two same
60 guide vanes.
235
Head
To reduce the influence of boundary conditions on the flow field,
230
Efficiency 50 extension sections were increased before the inducer and after the
second stage, respectively. Because the geometry of the computa-
225 40 tional region is complex, an unstructured tetrahedral mesh was
adopted. Moreover, grid independence was performed with five
220 30 different grids.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Grids number ( x 10 )
6 The head and the efficiency changed with grid numbers, as
shown in Fig. 11. When the total grid number was greater than
Fig. 11. Head and efficiency changed with various grid numbers. 6,750,000, the head and the efficiency curves tended to be constant
 J. Zhang et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 29 (2016) 89e100 97

290 100 Therefore, the total grid number of the total computational domain
280 was6.75  106.
270 90

260
4.2. Numerical simulation method and setting of boundary
80 conditions
250

Efficiency (%)
Head (m)

240
70
The three-dimensional turbulence flow field in the pump was
230 simulated by commercial software ANSYS-FLUENT 14.0. The flow
220 was assumed to be steady, and the medium was a viscous incom-
60
210 pressible fluid. The RNG k-ε turbulence model and a standard wall
Head function were used to calculate the fluid field. The interaction be-
200 Efficiency 50
tween rotors and the stators were considered with the multiple
190
reference frames (MRF) method. The coupling of the pressure and
180 40 the velocity was calculated with a SIMPLEC algorithm, and the
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5
3
Q/Q0 (m /h) pressure term was calculated with the PRESTO! method. The con-
vection terms were discretized with the two order upwind scheme.
Fig. 12. Characteristic curves without cavitation. For the cavitation performance simulation, the Mixture multiphase
model and the Schnerr-Sauer cavitation model were employed. The
boundary conditions of the total pressure at inlet and mass flow at
300
outlet were adopted.

290
5. Simulation results and analysis

280 5.1. Hydraulic performance prediction without cavitation

270 In the non-cavitation flow, the flow field of LNG submerged

Head (m)

0.9Q0 pump was simulated under the conditions from 0.6Q0 to 1.4Q0.
260 1.0Q0 Fig. 12 shows the characteristic curves predicted by the simulation.
1.1Q0 The formulas for calculating the head and efficiency are as follows.
250 pout  pin
H¼ (19)
rg
240

h ¼ hh hv hm (20)
230
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45  0:6
NPSHa (m) where, hh ¼ rgQH
Mu , hv ¼ 1  0:028 ns
100 ,
 1:18
Fig. 13. Prediction curves of cavitation characteristics under three conditions. ns
hm ¼ 1  0:07 100 .
In Fig. 12, it is clear that the LNG pump head under the design
with the increasing grid number. It was considered that the flow condition was H ¼ 260.15 m, and this result met the design
increased grid had insignificant effect on the calculation results. requirements. Furthermore, the efficiency of the designed LNG
pump smoothly varied between 55% and 65% in the range of 0.6Q0

Fig. 14. Models of the two impellers.

98 J. Zhang et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 29 (2016) 89e100

~1.4Q0. The highest efficiency was 62.82%.

300
5.2. Cavitation performance prediction
290
To enhance the convergence speed of cavitation calculation, the
calculation results without cavitation were used as the initial value
280
of flow calculation with cavitation. In the simulation, the steam
pressure was set as Ptv ¼ 0.102 MPa, and gradually reduced the
0.9 Q0

Head (m)
pump inlet pressure until the cavitation occurred in the flow field. 270
Designed by two dimension theory
At the beginning of the simulation, the inlet pressure was suffi-
Designed by quasi-3D flow theory
ciently large. Thus, there was no cavitation in the pump, and the 260
hydraulic characteristics, such as the head, were not affected. With
a gradual reduction of the inlet total pressure, the cavitation 250
occurred and gradually aggravated, which led to a decrease of the
pump head. 240
Fig. 13 shows cavitation performance curves of the designed
LNG submerged pump that were predicted with three different 230
conditions: 0.9 Q0, 1.0 Q0 and 1.1 Q0. The calculation formula of net 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
positive suction head available (NPSHa) of the pump is written as NPSHa (m)
equation (21) (Tan et al., 2010).
(a) 0.9 Q0
pin  ptv c2
NPSH ¼ þ (21) 300
rg 2g
The NPSHr was defined at the point of 3% head loss. The values of 290

NPSHrs for the three conditions were 1.69 m, 2.54 m and 3.11 m,
respectively. According to the previously published reports (Zhu 280
et al., 2012) and (Sun et al., 2010), the NPSHr of the LNG sub-
merged pump that was designed in this paper met the industrial
Head (m)

270
needs. 1.0 Q0
260 Designed by two dimension theory
5.3. Cavitation performance analysis of the LNG submerged pump Designed by quasi-3D flow theory
250
To verify the cavitation performance of the LNG submerged
pump that was designed by the method presented in this study, an
240
impeller with the same diameter was designed by a two-element
flow theory. A comparative analysis of the two impellers was per-
230
formed with a numerical simulation. Fig. 14 shows the blades 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
comparison of the two impellers. It is clear that the impeller NPSHa (m)
designed by quasi-3D flow theory is more twist than that designed
by 2D theory, especially at the leading edge. (b) 1.0 Q0
Fig. 15 shows the cavitation performance of two different im-
pellers for the following conditions: 0.9 Q0, 1.0 Q0 and 1.1 Q0. It was 300
clear that the head and NPSHr of the pump that was designed by the
quasi-3D method were better for the three flow conditions. How- 290
ever, this advantage gradually declined when the flow rate
increased. 280

Fig. 16 shows regions whose void fractions are larger than 85% in
270
two impellers that were designed by two different methods
Head (m)

respectively. It was clearly shown that their cavities were formed

260 1.1 Q0
from the leading edges of blades and were developed along the
suction surfaces of blades. However, compared with the cavity area Designed by two dimension theory
250
in the impeller that was designed by a 2D flow theory, the cavity Designed by quasi-3D flow theory
area in the impeller designed by a quasi-3D flow theory was
240
smaller. In the impeller that was designed by a 2D flow theory, the
cavities appeared at the head as well as on the blade pressure
230
surface. This illustrated that the impeller designed by a quasi-3D
flow theory had better cavitation performance. 220
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

6. Conclusions NPSHa (m)

The impeller of a two-stage LNG submerged pump was designed (c) 1.1 Q0
by the quasi-3D hydraulic design method based on the S1 and S2
Fig. 15. NPSH curves at the three conditions.
stream surfaces iteration theory. In the procedure of design, the
finite element method with a quadrilateral nine-node element was
 J. Zhang et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 29 (2016) 89e100 99

Fig. 16. Comparison of cavitation position and region in the two impellers.

adopted in the S1 stream surface calculation, and the quasi- Acknowledgments

orthogonal method was used for the S2 stream surface calcula-
tion. Blade drawing was performed by iterating the camber lines The project was supported by the National Natural Science
and circulation equations on the average S2 stream surface. To Foundation of China (Grant No. 51209217) and the Science Foun-
obtain the desired cavitation performance of the impeller for LNG dation of China University of Petroleum, Beijing (No.
transportation, a reasonable ‘S’-type velocity moment distribution 2462015YQ0402).
was considered.
The hydraulic and the cavitation performance of the design Nomenclature
pump were obtained by an entire flow passage steady numerical
simulation. The efficiency was 62.82%, and the head was Q0 Flow rate of the design flow condition
260.15 m at the design flow condition. The results demonstrated Vi Absolute velocity component of the flow
that the hydraulic performance was sufficient to meet the design Wi Relative velocity component of the flow
requirements. Furthermore, the working region with high effi- W Relative velocity
ciency was broad. The NPSHr under conditions with 0.9 Q0, 1.0 Q0 yq r Velocity moments
and 1.1 Q0 are, respectively, 1.53 m, 2.99 m and 3.67 m and meet the q1 Meridional streamline
industrial needs. q2 Flow cross-section line
The cavitation and the hydraulic performance of the impeller q3 Circumferential coordinate line
that was designed by a quasi-3D hydraulic design method were H1 Lame coefficient H1 ¼ H1(q1,q2)
better than those of the impeller designed by a two-dimensional H2 Lame coefficient H2 ¼ H2(q1,q2)
design method. The presented data confirmed that the hydraulic H3 Lame coefficient H3 ¼ r
design method presented in this paper was feasible. 4 Potential function
100 J. Zhang et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 29 (2016) 89e100

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