1. CFD Simulation of a Centrifugal
Pump

2. Objective:
The Objective of the study is to perform a CFD analysis of a Centrifugal Pump. The geometry for the analysis contains two
different parts i.e. volute casing and impeller. The necessity of the work is to follow the recommended procedure for the
analysis using turbomachinery module CFX under ANSYS Workbench.
Geometry:
Volute Impeller

3. Methodology Adopted:
 At the onset the Impeller blade is designed using Vista CPD followed by the generation of Volute casing using Blade
Gen.
 Once the volute casing and impeller were designed separately, these parts were meshed using ANSYS workbench and
Turbo Mesh module.
 A structured hexahedral mesh was generated on impeller blade while the volute casing was meshed using tetrahedral
elements with fine inflation at the boundaries.
 In the next step both the meshed parts clubbed together and sent to CFX solver for setting up the boundary
conditions.
 The problem was solved using CFX solver and the results were extracted using CFD Post-processing.

4. The following analysis sequence was used to perform the CFD analysis.
Analysis Sequence:
Impeller Blade design using Vista CPD
Meshed using Turbo
Grid
Volute Casing Generation
Meshed using ANSYS
Meshing
Solved in CFX Solver
CFD Post Processing

5. Meshed Models:
Volute Casing Impeller Blade
Mesh Details:
Volute Casing:
Mesh Type: Tetrahedral
Meshing: ANSYS Meshing
Nodes: 65288
Elements: 193747
Impeller:
Mesh Type: Structured Hexahedral
Meshing: Turbo Grid Meshing
Nodes: 31388
Elements: 25740

6. Boundary Conditions:
Once the mesh was generated on Volute Casing
and Impeller, these both parts were clubbed
together in CFX by creating an interface between
them. The following boundary conditions were
applied for the analysis:
Pressure Inlet: 1 atm.
Turbulence Model: k-e
Reference Pressure: 1 atm.
Pressure Outlet: 0 atm.
Impeller Rotation: 6000 rev./min.
The Problem was solved for 500 number of
iterations and then the results were extracted
from CFD Post.
Volute Casing along with Impeller

7. Results:
Velocity Contour Pressure Contour

8. Results:
Velocity Contour Pressure Contour

9. Results:
Velocity Streamlines Velocity Vector

10. Conclusion:
A sample CFD Simulation of a Centrifugal Pump is performed using CFX solver to validate the methodology recommended
to solve the turbo machinery problems.
Note: The Y+ value for the present simulation is 80, however for better results and accuracy Y+ value should be
less than 30.