• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06e
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• pp.637-642
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• 2001

Performance and cavitation characteristics of a turbo pump inducer which is designed for oxygen pump is experimentally investigated. It is found that the static performance of inducer is dependent on the location of inlet pressure measurement and that enough distance from inducer is ensured for accurate evaluation of performance. With the increase of flow rate. NPSH tends to decrease as opposed to pump characteristics, which seems to be due to the cavitation region.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.6 no.1 s.18
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• pp.6-13
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• 2003

Variations of performance and NPSH of a turbo pump inducer were measured. The flows at the inlet and the outlet of the inducer were also experimentally investigated by measuring flow velocity and angle using a 3-hole Pilot tube. Performance and velocity profiles show a similarity for tested speeds, however not for efficiencies. Strong recirculating flows appears at the inlet of inducer even at the design condition. Cavitating flows were also visualized at several NPSH's.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.52-57
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• 2009

The effects of number of blades on the hydraulic performance of the inducer were studied using a computational method. Inducers with number of blades from 2 to 4 were used for computations and the hydraulic performances of the inducers were compared. The computational results showed that the hydraulic performance decreased due to the increase of the skin friction loss at blade passages as the blade number increased. The results also showed that the strength of the backflow became weak because of the decrease of unfavorable pressure gradient as the blade number increased.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• v.y2005m4
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• pp.243-247
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• 2005

Hydraulic performance test was conducted for a fuel pump of a liquid rocket engine turbopump. The pump driven by an electric motor was tested in water environment. It is experimentally shown that the inducer had very small effect on the pimp's head and efficiency but great effect on the pump's cavitation performance. Additionally, inducer test was carried out to investigate the effect of the inducer on the pump in detail, and it was found that the pump had a critical cavitation number when the inducer head dropped by $55\%$.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.18-22
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• 2006

Hydrodynamic performance test was conducted for a fuel pump of a liquid rocket engine turbopump. The pump driven by an electric motor was tested using water. It is experimentally shown that the inducer had very small effect on the pump's head and efficiency but great effect on the pump's cavitation performance. Additionally, inducer test was carried out to investigate the effect of the inducer on the pump in detail, and it was found that the pump reached a critical cavitation number when the inducer head dropped by 55%.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.12a
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• pp.353-360
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• 2003

Hydraulic performance and cavitation characteristics of fuel pump in turbo-pump were studied experimentally. The fuel pump has a centrifugal impeller with a separate inducer. In this paper, flow characteristics of inducer and impeller was experimentally investigated separately and together. Especially static pressure distribution of Inducer was examined in non-cavitation and cavitation conditions.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.33 no.11
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• pp.74-79
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• 2005

Computational studies on the hydrodynamic behavior of the forward-sweep inducers for the rocket-engine turbopump are presented in comparison with the conventional backward- sweep inducers. In the present study, two kinds of forward-sweep inducers are designed and numerically investigated. Forward-sweep inducers have bigger tip solidity compared to backward-sweep inducers even with shorter axial length due to their forward-sweep leading edge profiles. It is shown that back flows at the inlet decreases dramatically for forward- sweep inducers. And the low pressure region at the back flow are also decreased, which is assumed to promote the suction performance of the inducers. It seems that the hub located upstream of the tip at the leading edge induces pre whirl at the inlet blade tip for the backward sweep inducer. And this pre whirl leads to the big back flow.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.382-388
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• 2004

The hydraulic and suction performance of an inducer varies sensitively with the inducer geometry and this paper deals with solidity as the inducer geometry parameter. The typical performance characteristics of a basic inducer was investigated and tests with another three inducers of which the solidity is different from each other were performed, so the effect of solidity on the inducer performance was experimentally investigated. For a fixed flow coefficient, required NPSH of the inducer did not follow the conventional similarity rule, so this paper suggested another empirical formula. The hydraulic and suction performance was measured at four cases of the tip solidity ranged from 1.32 to 2.76. As long as the tip solidity had the value above 1.84, the hydraulic and suction performance of the inducer increased with decrease in the tip solidity. With further decrease in the tip solidity up to 1.32, however, inducer head decreased and the suction performance dropped sharply.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.9 no.2 s.35
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• pp.25-29
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• 2006

Computational and experimental studies on the forward-sweep inducer for the rocket-engine turbopump are presented in comparison with the conventional backward-sweep inducer. Computational results show that back flows at the inlet decrease in the case of forward-sweep inducers compared to the back-ward inducer. Moreover, the low pressure region at the back flow is decreased, which is presumed to improve the suction performance of the inducers. Experimental results show that the suction performance of the forward-sweep inducer is almost the same as that of the backward-sweep inducer although it has smaller inlet tip diameter and shorter length. The efficiency of the forward-type inducer is found better than that of the backward-sweep inducer due to the small size of back flows.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.49-53
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• 2010

The computational studies on the cavitating flow around a turbopump inducer were performed to see the effect of the cavitation on the performance of the inducer. The development of cavities around the inducer blades and the head drop of the inducer are observed as the inlet pressure reduces. The change of the backflow at the inducer inlet is also observed with the development of the cavities. The size of the backflow reduces as the inlet pressure is reduced due to the development of the cavities around the blades. The predicted suction performances of the inducer were compared with the experimental results. The results show that the computations overestimate the suction performances of the inducer than the experiments.