• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2017.05a
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• pp.820-823
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• 2017

This study experimentally investigate how the Reynolds number affect cavitation performance in a turbopump inducer using water. Cavitation performance has been determined by the static pressure measured at the inlet of the inducer. Reynolds number has been varied by varying water temperature and inducer rotational speed to maintain constant non-dimensional thermal parameter. At low non-dimensional thermal parameter, the critical cavitation number is insensitive to Reynolds number. However, at high non-dimensional thermal parameter, the critical cavitation number increased as Reynolds number increases. Thus, cavitation performance is deteriorated as Reynolds number increases when thermal effect exists.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.8 no.3 s.30
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• pp.42-47
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• 2005

Effects of a booster inducer on the suction performance of turbopumps are investigated in this paper. To see the effect of the booster inducer, suction performance tests are conducted with and without the booster inducer for three turbopumps. It is shown that the booster inducer can enhance the suction performance of turbopumps when the tip clearance of the main inducers are relatively large. Numerical analysis are also carried out to see the effects of the booster inducer on the performance of the main inducer. The booster inducer is shown to increase the static pressure at the inlet of the main inducer and prevent growing of inlet back flows which are believed to have deleterious effects on the suction performance of the inducer.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.12a
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• pp.552-557
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• 2004

Effects of a booster inducer on the suction performance of turbopumps are investigated in this paper. To see the effect of the booster inducer, suction performance tests are conducted with and without the booster inducer for three turbopumps. It is shown that the booster inducer can enhance the suction performance of turbopumps when the tip clearance of the main inducers are relatively large. Numerical analysis are also carried out to see the effects of the booster inducer on the performance of the main inducer. The booster inducer is shown to increase the static pressure at the inlet of the main inducer and prevent growing of inlet back flows which are believed to have deleterious effects on the suction performance of the inducer.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.13-18
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• 2014

Computational and experimental studies on a forward-sweep inducer for turbopumps were performed to see the effect of the blade sweep on the suction performance of the inducer. Computational results show that backflows at the inlet decrease in the case of the forward-sweep inducer by inhibiting pre-rotation of the inflow and the low pressure region near the tip also diminishes, which is presumed to improve the suction performance of the inducer. The predicted suction performance of the inducer is compared with the experimental result. The result shows that the computation overestimates the suction performance of the inducer compared to the value from the experiment.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.41-45
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• 2012

The effects of inducer tip clearance on the suction performance of a pump for turbopumps are investigated. Experiments for the pump with inducer tip clearances of 1.8% and 1.4% of blade height were performed. The experimental results showed that the suction performance of the pump increased as the tip clearance decreased. It seems that the suction performance of the pump becomes better with smaller tip clearances because the strength of the inducer backflow becomes weak with the decreased tip clearance.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.1074-1082
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• 1996

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.187-195
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• 2012

This paper deals with numerical computations of cryogenic flows around turbopump inducer. Firstly, we introduce numerical methods to compute compressible/incompressible cryogenic two-phase flow. As a validation problem, computation results of 2 dimensional/axi-symmetric cryogenic flow will be presented. In this process, various cavitation model will be compared. Finally, numerical simulation of 3 dimensional turbopump inducer will be presented.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2002.12a
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• pp.33-40
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• 2002

The hydraulic performance analysis of a pump system composed of an inducer and impeller for the application on turbopumps has been performed using three-dimensional Wavier-Stokes equations. A simple mixing-plane method and a full interaction method are used to simulate inducer/impeller interactions. The computations adopting two methods show almost similar results due to the weak interaction between the inducer and impeller since the inducer outlet blade angle is rather small. But, because the inducer and the impeller are closely spaced near the shroud region at the interface, flow angles at the impeller inlet show different results between two methods. Thus, the full interaction method predicted about $2\%$ higher pump performance than the mixing-plane method. And the effects of prewhirl at the impeller inlet are also investigated. As the inlet flow angle is increased, the head rise and the efficiency are decreased. The computational results are compared with experimental ones. The computational results at the design point show good agreements with experimental data. But the computation was found to under-predict the head rise at high mass flow rates compared to the experiment, further study must be followed in terms of the computation and experiment.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.6 no.4 s.21
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• pp.50-57
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• 2003

The hydraulic performance analysis of a turbopump with an inducer for a liquid rocket engine was performed using three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations. A simple mixing-plane method and a full interaction method were used to simulate inducer/impeller interaction. Two methods show almost similar results due to the weak interaction between the inducer and impeller since the inducer outlet blade angle is lather small. But, when the inducer and the impeller are closely spaced near the shroud region, flow angles at the impeller inlet show different results between two methods. Thus, the full interaction method predicts about $2\%$ higher pump performance than the mixing-plane method. And the effects of prewhirl at the impeller inlet are also investigated. As the inlet flow angle is increased, the head rise and the efficiency are decreased. The computational results are compared with measured ones. The computational results at the design point show good agreements with experimental data, however under-predicts the head rise at high mass flow rates compared to the experiment.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.35 no.11
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• pp.1022-1027
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• 2007

Experimental and computational studies on a turbopump inducer with and without a bearing strut were performed to evaluate the effects of a strut on the performance of an inducer. Head rise, efficiency and surface static pressures were measured and compared with computational results. Generally a good agreement is observed between experimental and computational results, but some discrepancies are observed due to complex flow features such as backflows at the inlet and strut/inducer interactions. For the flow rates where the backflow region is large, installing a strut enhanced the hydraulic performance of the inducer by diminishing the size of the backflows. The results also show that the strut has negligible effect on the suction performance of the inducer.