Suppression of Cavitation in Inducer by J-Groove

J-그루브에 의한 인듀서의 캐비테이션 억제

Cavitation is the most serious problem caused in developing high-speed turbopump, and use of an inducer is often made to avoid cavitation in main impeller. Thus, the inducer always operates under the worst condition of cavitation. If it could be possible to control and suppress cavitation in the inducer by some new device, it would also be possible to suppress cavitation occurring in all types of pumps. The purpose of our present study is to develop a new effective method of controlling and suppressing cavitation in an inducer using shallow grooves, named as "J-Groove", J-Groove is installed on the casing wall near the blade tip to use the pressure difference between high pressure region and low pressure region in the axial direction at the inlet of the inducer. The results show that proper combination of backward-swept inducer with J-Groove improves suction performance of turbopump remarkably in the range of partial flow rate as well as designed flow rate. The rotating backflow cavitation occurring in the range of low flow rate and the cavitation surge occurring in the vicinity of the best efficiency point can be almost fully suppressed by installing J-Groove.