Flow and Loss Mechanisms in Volutes of Centrifugal Pumps

Abstract

These lecture notes provide an overview of the different inlet and outlet volutes for radial impellers. It describes the advantages and disadvantages of the different geometries, the relation between flow and geometry, the impact on the downstream or upstream impeller, the loss mechanisms and some loss prediction models. The main purpose is to provide an insight into the flow structure that can be used later to improve the performance or remediate some problems. The use of CFD is not discussed but the flow models presented here may help to get a better understanding of the CFD output.