Investigation of Air Entrainment: A Numerical Approach

The air entrainment in sumps (Pump Intake) is a commonly observed phenomenon at low water level and high Froude number corresponding to flow rates higher than the rated flow. The air entrainment initiates with the formation of small vortex like structure on the surface with its position varying in the vicinity of Pump intake portion. Normally it calls for two-phase flow analysis (and possibly transient also) to correctly predict the air entrainment phenomenon using computational fluid dynamics approach. We at CRED, Kirloskar Brothers Limited could predict the root cause for air entrainment by studying the vortex formation well within the flow. A single-phase steady state flow was analyzed. Two test cases were studied. IOWA University had published a sump case with results from computational fluid dynamics studies. The other case was the actual sump model study carried out using experimental setup wherein the air entrainment was observed. The paper presents the comparison of the predictions with results from these two test cases.