Types of Centrifugal Pump Casings

There three basic types of pump casings: volutes, diffusers and vortex.

Whether were talking about volutes or diffusers, what all casings have in common is
that they are designed to take energy in the form of velocity and convert it into
pressure.

Volutes:
Volutes are designed to capture the velocity of liquid as it enters the outermost
diameter of an impeller and convert the velocity of the liquid into pressure.
In the picture to the right, notice that the impeller is not located in the center of the
volute. This is intentional. The portion of the volute that extends closest to the impeller
is called the cutwater.
You will notice, that starting from the cutwater and proceeding in a counter-clockwise
fashion, the distance between the volute and the impeller increases gradually. This has
the effect of causing pressure to build within the volute as the distance increases. Once
the point of greatest separation is reached directly next to the cutwater moving in
clockwise direction the pressure is at its greatest, and water is forced out the casing
when it encounters the cutwater.

Figure 1: Volute casing

Diffusers:
What a cutwater is to a volute, vanes are to a diffuser. While volutes only have one (or
sometimes two) points where the edge of the casing approaches the edge of the
impeller in order to begin building pressure, diffusers often have many vanes. In the
case of the assembly drawing shown the diffuser contains 10 vanes as compared the
volute casing which only has one.

Also, while an impeller is placed in the center of a volute, an impeller generally sits
directly adjacent to a diffuser and pushes water into the diffuser vanes.

The basic function of a diffuser is similar to that of a volute. Diffuser vanes are positioned
such that they begin close to the outer edge of the impeller and then gradually extend
away from the impeller periphery.

Figure 2: Diffuser casing

Vortex casing:
When a circular chamber is introduced between the impeller and casing, the casing is
known as vortex casing. In this case, the liquid from the impeller enters into the vortex
chamber and then through the volute chamber, in this arrangement, the eddy loss is
considerably reduced and the efficiency of conversion from K.E. into pressure energy is
increased as compared with volute casing.

Figure 3: Vortex casing