Deep-Sea Mining Pump Wear Prediction Using Numerical Two-Phase Flow Simulation

In view of the wear problem of deep-sea mining pump, Euler-Lagrange two-phase flow model was applied to simulate the solid-liquid two-phase turbulent flow in the pump, and compared with the experimental results to verify the accuracy of the simulation. Finnie wear model was utilized to predict the wear rate of the hydraulic components of deep-sea mining pump under different flow rates, rotational speed and different particle concentrations. The results are shown that the wear rate of the impeller increases along with the increase of the flow rate, but that of the guide vanes is not obviously increasing. This is distinct part between the vane type slurry pump and volute type slurry pump. As the speed or particle concentration increases, the wear rate of the machine surface in the pump rapidly increases. The wear rate of the impeller hydraulic components is faster than that of the of the guide vane. Depending on the design principle of equal life, the hydraulic components of impeller should be made by more wear-resistant material.