Date of Award

8-2006

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.S.

Degree Program

Engineering

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Major Professor

Wang, Ting

Second Advisor

Guillot, Martin J.

Third Advisor

Schilling, Paul

Abstract

An innovative pump, TurboPiston Pump, has been invented to incorporate the merits of centrifugal, axial, and positive displacement pumps. The TurboPiston pump is designed to deliver large flow rates at very high pressure of up to 1000 psia. To improve the original design, an understanding of flow behavior inside the pump is needed. Therefore, this thesis focuses on simulating the flow field inside the pump and studying its performance. This study includes modeling the pump using a commercial CAD package, GAMBIT and a 3-D computational fluid dynamic (CFD) solver, FLUENT. The calculation employs both the simplified steady moving frame and the complicated transient sliding mesh schemes. The flow pattern, static pressure distribution, and total pressure losses are calculated and analyzed. The regions of high total pressure losses and potential creation of cavitation are identified. Design changes are recommended to minimize cavitation and total pressure losses to improve the pump performance.

Rights

The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation.

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