Pump pulsations

[Aley50]

Hi all,

My company is currently designing a reciprocating heat pump, and wants me to attempt a preliminary pulsation study to discover the cause of a pressure loss at the compresssion stage.

My hunch is that ultimately we will have to commission a full pulsation study to get a handle on this phenomenon but in the meantime I would like to model it to understand it as best as possible.

I am a physicist by training and so am I reasonably comfortable with models generally but am uncertain how to carry out this sort of analysis. I want to ask if someone could provide me some references or recommend a textbook which could get me up to speed on developing a simple model. A sample study would also be a great help.

Many thanks.

 

[desertfox]

Hi Aley50

Not sure whether this link will help or not, it deals with pulsations in reciprocating pumps but geared to non compressed flow.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...&q=pulsations in a reciprocating pump&f=false

desertfox

 

[stanier]

The Reciprocating Pump by Miller is the bible on how these devices work. Publisher Keiger.

AFT's Impulse can model the behaviour of a pulsating pump. AFT could also do the modelling for you if you have a tight time frame.

http://www.aft.com.

 

[Compositepro]

If you are dealing with the compressor in a heat pump your fluid is a highly compressible gas, so pressure pulsations are not normally a significant issue. A small chamber at the discharge of the compressor is all that is required to fully damp these pulsations.