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Feature 37
WORLD PUMPS February 2011

Figure 1. Blade section of a forward curved impeller and diffuser. Figure 2. Blade section of a backward curved impeller and diffuser.

shapes for both pump and turbine opera- impeller available on the market and is The shape of the backward curved
tions. The model will be useful in evalu- also seen in the blade shapes of fans and impeller along with the diffuser blade is
ating the influences of the blade shapes compressors. Figure 1 shows a section of a shown in Figure 2. This peculiar shape of
and also help in studying suitable shapes forward curved axial impeller stage (impeller axial impeller has been widely used by
for dedicated turbine operation. and diffuser ring). This type of impeller has KSB (for example, in the Amacan P series;
been investigated by Baumgarten et al.4a www.ksb.com) and has also been reported
and Stark and Siekmann4b for axial flow by Springer4c. The energy transfer and
Survey of axial flow impellers
pumps, while Dixon5 has carried out studies behaviour of the internal variables for
The basic shape of the axial blade is defined on axial flow fans and compressors with both pump and turbine modes will be
based on the relationship of the curvature forward curved blade designs. The energy examined in the second article.
with respect to the direction of the blade transfer and internal hydraulics for this blade
rotation. The forward curved variety is the shape in pumps and turbines are discussed
Theoretical model and analysis
most common type of axial flow pump in the next section.
A theoretical model is derived here for
pump and turbine operations using
forward curved impellers. The model relies
on Euler fundamentals for axial machines
as suggested by Singh and Nestmann6.

Pump operation
The construction of the velocity triangles in
pump mode involves certain assumptions,
namely, that the absolute flow entry to the
impeller is swirl-free, and that there is zero
flow incidence at the blade entry. Further,
the deflection of the relative velocity at the
blade exit is neglected, which is a reason-
able assumption provided the entry is
incidence free, as pointed out by Dixon for
compressor cascade results5. In addition,
the flow areas at the exit and the entry are
identical, making the axial flow velocities
identical as the compressibility effects of
the working fluid, which is liquid, have
been neglected.

The velocity triangles for the complete stage

of a forward curved impeller are plotted in
Figure 3. The shape of the diffuser is based
on the resulting direction of the absolute
Figure 3. Internal flow analysis of a forward curved blade in pump mode. flow velocity at the rotor exit and the need

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