Critical Hydraulic Eccentricity Estimation in Vertical Turbine Pump Impeller to Control Vibration

In many applications, pumps are tested against standard specifications to define the maximum allowable vibration amplitude limits of a pump. It is essential to identify the causes of vibration and methods to attenuate the same to ensure the safe and satisfactory operation of a pump. Causes of vibration can be classified mainly into mechanical and hydraulic nature. Respective unbalance masses are the two major factors which cause dynamic effects and excitation forces leading to undesirable vibrations. In this paper, the procedure of vibration magnitude measurement of a vertical turbine pump at site and the process of dynamic balancing to measure mechanical unbalance of an impeller are explained. After that, the impact of hydraulic eccentricity on the vibration displacement of a vertical turbine pump has been explained using numerical simulation procedure based on “One-way Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI).” The experimental results from a pump at site are used to compare the numerical results. After the solver validation, the one-way FSI approach is used to find the critical hydraulic eccentricity magnitude of a vertical turbine pump impeller to limit the vibration magnitudes on motor component to less than 100 μm. From the numerical simulations, it is deduced that the critical hydraulic eccentricity should be limited to 400 μm in X and Y direction. The process can be used as a guideline procedure for limiting the hydraulic unbalance in vertical turbine pumps by limiting the hydraulic eccentricity.