Numerical simulation of the internal flow and structural improvement in the electrical fuel pump

CHEN Zhong, ZHANG Zhendong, WU Shuai

(School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China)

Abstract: Aiming at studying the complicated internal flowed principles of the electrical fuel pump and improving its working efficiency, fuel pumps inner flow fields were simulated with the help of the numerical simulation software called Fluent which based on Reynolds timeaveraged NS equations and standard KΣ turbulent mode as well as standard wall function method. To obtain the velocity and pressure distributions of inner flow of the fuel pump, its impeller blades with different angles, numbers, and thickness were constructed and simulated by threedimensional nonstructural tetrahedral mesh. Fuel pump impellers parameters were considered as variables, and the flow of the outlet was seen as a target function, According to the simulation result, the general pattern could be found between the flow of outlet and impeller blades angles, numbers, and thickness by numerical fitting. Besides, the better fuel pumps performance was verified by the bench tests of the fuel pump. The results indicate that the experimental data is similar with that of simulation, and the flow of outlet rises by 2.5%, the working performance of fuel pump is actually improved.

Key words: fuel pump; impeller; computational simulation; Fluent