Review of FEA for a 14-stage Vertical Axis Centrifugal Pump

A few 14-stage vertical axis centrifugal pumps were causing vibration problem in the field. The pump manufacturer performed FEA to calculate the natural frequencies of the pump which were in conflict with their customer’s field observation. The pump manufacturer contacted KEI to review their FEA model and offer recommendations to identify gaps between the FEA results and field observations.

KEI provided several recommendations to improve the FEA model for including the realistic boundary conditions resembling the field installation of the pump. The main recommendations were related to accounting for the piping stiffness and piping constraints near the installed pump location, adding the axial thrust in FEA model to perform a prestressed FEA of the pump assembly, and to simplify the FEA model to reduce the mesh size without compromising the accuracy.

Contact us to know more about a 14-stage vertical axis centrifugal pump.