Design Optimization of Centrifugal Pump Using Radial Basis Function Metamodels

Optimization design of centrifugal pump is a typical multiobjective optimization (MOO) problem. This paper presents an MOO design of centrifugal pump with five decision variables and three objective functions, and a set of centrifugal pumps with various impeller shroud shapes are studied by CFD numerical simulations. The important performance indexes for centrifugal pump such as head, efficiency, and required net positive suction head (NPSHr) are investigated, and the results indicate that the geometry shape of impeller shroud has strong effect on the pump's performance indexes. Based on these, radial basis function (RBF) metamodels are constructed to approximate the functional relationship between the shape parameters of impeller shroud and the performance indexes of pump. To achieve the objectives of maximizing head and efficiency and minimizing NPSHr simultaneously, multiobjective evolutionary algorithm based on decomposition (MOEA/D) is applied to solve the triobjective optimization problem, and a final design point is selected from the Pareto solution set by means of robust design. Compared with the values of prototype test and CFD simulation, the solution of the final design point exhibits a good consistency.