Investigation of vortex and hysteresis effects in the inlet device of a centrifugal pump

The article is devoted to exploration of vortex and hysteresis effects in the inlet device of a centrifugal pump, which were discovered during the designing of a multistage pump. At present, many works in the field of numerical simulation of the pumps are devoted to their optimization via changing some quite common parameters, not taking into account some effects like mentioned above. This work shows that usage of CFD can help to predict quite precisely such processes. The relevance of the study is quite high since the explored process can negatively influence the pump’s operation and cause damage of the unit.