Effect of reduced diameter pipeline and impeller position on the performance of reactor coolant pump

Abstract In the reactor coolant pump experiments, there are cases where different impellers are replaced on the same volute for experiments, but due to the different diameter of the impeller inlet, there will be a sudden expansion between the inlet pipeline and the impeller inlet, resulting in a decrease in the efficiency of the pump. In order to solve this problem, a scheme of using an inlet pipe with a reduced diameter structure and changing the position of the impeller was proposed, and based on the three-dimensional incompressible Reynolds N-S equation, the reactor coolant pump device was numerically simulated by CFD software. The data simulation results of the reduced diameter structure, straight pipe flow field and changing the position of the impeller were compared with the model experiments, and the reliability of the calculation results was verified. The results show that the inlet pipe with reduced diameter structure and the method of changing the position of the impeller can effectively solve the problem of efficiency decline caused by the sudden expansion of the flow channel.