Numerical investigations of submerged vortices in a model pump sump by using Large Eddy Simulation

Submerged vortices in a model pump sump and their flow structures were investigated numerically. The model pump sump is composed of a 2,500 mm-long water channel with rectangular cross section of 150 mm (channel width) by 100 mm (water height) and a vertical suction pipe with 100 mm diameter installed at its downstream end. At the upstream end of the channel, a uniform velocity of 0.37 m/s is given. In order to capture appearances and disappearances of submerged vortices in the pump sump, large eddy simulations (LES) are performed. The computational grids for the LES are composed of 2 billion hexahedral elements with 0.255 mm resolution. These grids can resolve the streamwise vortices in the approaching turbulent boundary layers that develops on the channel walls. However, it is not sufficiently fine to capture the vortex cores of the submerged vortices. The LES succeeded to capture appearances of the submerged vortices. By performing LES with several different sets of the wall boundary conditions, we have clearly identified, to the best of our knowledge for the first time, the origin of the submerged vortices. Computations that used a simplified computational model, where the computational domain was localized to the region close to the vortex core, were also performed to predict correctly the vortex core and to investigate dynamics of the vortices. The grid resolution in the simplified computational model was 0.03 mm. We successfully computed the size of vortex core in the simplified computational model. For this model, we also investigated the conditions under which a vortex appears by changing inlet tangential velocity.