Importance & Requirement of CFD Analysis

Generally CFD analysis is carried out where there is a flow of water or any stream involving sumps, pumps, pipe/channels etc. The fluid flow in sumps is rather complex involving expansions, turns together with fluid structure interaction. It is essential to ensure that pumps operating in such sumps get smooth swirl free flow at its entry. Traditional approach was to carry out sump model studies experimentally with a reduced scale model and applying Froude Similarity rules. 

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has recently come up as an alternative approach to investigate the complex fluid flow phenomenon in sumps. It is a software based application to study various fluid dynamics. It is rapidly becoming an important tool for analysis and design in hydraulic engineering. Hydraulic engineering encompasses a broad range of activity from flow in a river to design of structures to control and distribute/divert water for various purposes. These flow problems have features that are not commonly found in other applications. 

In the case of pump industry applications, CFD tools are important in view of analysis of the hydraulic passage of the pumps and sumps. For impeller inlet, CFD can help to improve the inlet flow distribution by proper designing/ checking the quality of flow in pump sump. In case of sumps, CFD analysis is used to investigate flow quality entering into the pump at various combinations of pumps in operation. The analysis is done at minimum water level with pumps running at duty point. If the performance of sump is satisfactory at minimum water level, then the performance of the sump will be satisfactory at all other higher water levels because of reduction in velocities.