CALCULATING THE NEW IMPELLER DIAMETER OR SPEED FOR A NEW FLOW RATE

Calculate the diameter of the impeller required to achieve a permanent change in your
system's flow rate.:
The calculations are based on the affinity laws which in turn are derived from a
dimensionless analysis of three important parameters that describe pump performance
(ref: The Pump Handboo by !c"raw#Hill$ chapter %&. The analysis is based on the
reduced impeller being geometrically similar and operated at dynamically similar
conditions or equal specific speed.
The affinity laws or equations are:
where subscripts ' and % denote the value before and after the change. P is the power$
n the speed$ ( the impeller diameter $ H the total head.
)f the speed is fi*ed they become:
)f the diameter is fi*ed they become:
The process of arriving at the affinity laws assumes that the two operating points that
are being compared are at the same efficiency. The relationship between two operating
points$ say ' and %$ depends on the shape of the system curve (see ne*t +igure&. The
points that lie on system curve , will all be appro*imately at the same efficiency.
CALCULATING THE NEW IMPELLER DIAMETER OR SPEED FOR A NEW FLOW RATE
-hereas the points that lie on system curve . are not. The affinity laws do not apply
to points that belong to system curve .. /ystem curve . describes a system with a
relatively high static head vs. system curve , which has a low static head.
Diameter reduction To reduce costs pump casings are designed to accommodate
several different impellers. ,lso$ a variety of operating requirements can be met by
changing the outside diameter of a given radial impeller. 0uler's equation shows that
the head should be proportional to (n(&
%
provided that the e*it velocity triangles
remain the same before and after cutting. This is the usual assumption and leads to:
-hich apply only to a given impeller with altered ( and constant efficiency but not a
geometrically similar series of impellers. )f that is the case then the affinity laws can
be used to predict the performance of the pump at different diameters for the same
speed or different speed for the same diameter. /ince in practice impellers of
different diameters are not geometrically identical$ the author's of the section called
CALCULATING THE NEW IMPELLER DIAMETER OR SPEED FOR A NEW FLOW RATE
Performance Parameters in the Pump Handboo recommend to limit the use of this
technique to a change of impeller diameter no greater than '1 to %12. )n order to
avoid over cutting the impeller$ it is recommended that the trimming be done in steps
with careful measurement of the results. ,t each step compare your predicted
performance with the measured one and ad3ust as necessary.