• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.70-75
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• 2006

The performance of a turbopump system composed of an inducer, an impeller, a volute and seals has been computationally analyzed. To save the computational time, only one flow passage of the inducer and impeller is considered for the computations. A steady mixing-plane method is used on the impeller/volute interface for simulating the unsteady interaction phenomena. The axial thrust is predicted from the turbopump calculation in its entirety, which is necessary for such estimation. Moreover, the effects of each component on the pump performance are investigated at a design condition through the analysis of flow structures. The predicted performance is in good agreement with experimental data in terms of head rise, efficiency and volute wall pressure distributions despite of highly complex flow structures being present. The computational results also show that the axial and radial thrusts are within the design limit although corresponding experimental measurements were not taken.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06e
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• pp.631-636
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• 2001

The internal flow in the rocket pump inducer of LE-7 engine for H-II rocket was predicted at design and off-design flow rates using CFD code, CFX- Tascflow. In this numerical study, the performance curve of inducer coressponding to flow rates variation and the internal flow in the front of blade leading edge show good agreement between the calculations and the measurements. Backflow is appeared at suction side of leadinge edge tip, and this region is extended to upstream as flowrate decrease. Because of backflow, pressure loss coressponding to meridinal coordinate occupy 50% from inlet domain to leading edge. By this phenomena, pressure loss in front of blade leading edge take a great effect to inducer performance.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.21-28
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• 2014

Propellent should be pressurized inside the turbopump to gain high thrust in a projectile. Turbopump is composed of an inducer, which prevents impeller performance deterioration, and an impeller. Several types of cavitation occur inside the inducer, numerous experiments and CFD simulations are conducted. Though, an inducer takes only small portion of total head of the pump and the following impeller determines whole turbopump performance. In addition, low inlet pressure makes the flow to be cavitated not only at the inducer, but also at the impeller in real cases. Therefore, flow through an inducer and an impeller should considered simultaneously. In this study, LOX pump composed of an inducer and an impeller is analyzed by using commercial CFD code ANSYS CFX 13.0. Non-cavitating flow with high inlet pressure and cavitating flow with low inlet pressure are both simulated and head, suction performances are shown. Evolution of the flow and the cavitation by reducing cavitation number and effect of cavitation on pump performance are studied.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.12a
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• pp.776-781
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• 2005

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.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.29 no.11 s.242
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• pp.1239-1247
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• 2005

Cavitation is the most serious problem in developing high-speed turbopump, and inducer is often used to avoid cavitation in main impeller. Thus, inducer is always operating in the worst .cavitation condition. If it is possible to control and suppress cavitation in inducer by some new device, it might be possible to suppress cavitation occurring in any type of pumps. The purpose of present study is to develop a new effective method of controlling and suppressing cavitation in inducer using shallow grooves, which is named '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 of the inducer in an axial direction. 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 suppressed by installing J-Groove.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2002.12a
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• pp.408-416
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• 2002

Hydraulic performance of the pump with an inducer was predicted by 3-D Navier-stokes calculation. The evaluated pump was the single-stage centrifugal pump with a separated inducer to pressurize fuel (LCH4) in Turbo-pump system with a specific speed (Ns) of approximately 0.3[rad/s, m3/s, J/kg] and a suction specific speed(s) of 15[rad/s, m3/s, J/kg]. That conventional pump was designed with the combination of 1-D theory and empirical correlation. In this study, preliminary design to select key parameters such as inlet flow coefficient was reviewed by investigating sets of the known design methods to achieve appropriate suction performance, and the performance of newly designed inducer and impeller was compared with the old one, using CFD method. The numerical results showed that the hydraulic efficiency of the new pump was predicted $5.5\%$ higher than that of the conventional one, through design parameter re-selection, configuration improvement and blade loading control

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.299-303
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• 2005

The present study focuses on the flow analysis of a turbopump inducer by performing both numerical and experimental methods. The head rise, efficiency and detailed flow fields such as outlet flow angles, pressure and velocity vectors are measured and compared with the computational data. Generally a good agreement is obtained between numerical and experimental results. However, some discrepancies are observed due to complex flow structures inside the inducer. Future calculations with an advanced turbulence model and a dense computational grid needs to be performed to obtain accurate numerical solution for the detailed flow fields.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.5 no.1 s.14
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• pp.27-32
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• 2002

The turbopump inducer cavitation is very important for the success of a liquid rocket engine. In this study, the performance test and cavitation performance test were carried out at various rotational speeds with two inducers of different diameter. The rotational speed was varied by 4000, 6000, and 8000 rpm, and the size effect was tested for the normal inducer and twice-enlarged one. The hydraulic performance results showed that the similarity was satisfied over the entire test range of the present study. The blade thickness effect was examined and showed that the increased blade thickness resulted in decreased efficiency and worse cavitation performance for the large tip clearance. The cavitation performance test results showed that the breakdown NPSH increased as the flow coefficient, and was not affected by the rotational speed.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.5 no.1 s.14
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• pp.33-41
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• 2002

Low NPSH and high pressure pumps we widely used for turbopump systems, which have an inducer and operate at high rotating speeds. In this paper, a meanline method has been established for the preliminary design and performance prediction of pumps having an inducer for cavitating or non-cavitating conditions at design or off-design points. The method was applied for the performance prediction of a fuel pump. Predicted performances by the method are shown to be in good agreement with experimental results for cavitating and non-cavitating conditions. The established meanline method can be used for the performance prediction and preliminary design of high speed pumps which have a inducer, impeller and volute.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.229-234
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• 2001

The turbopump inducer cavitation is very important for the success of a Liquid rocket engine. In this study the performance test and cavitation performance test were carried out at various rotational speed with two different diameter inducers. The rotational speed were varied 4000, 6000, 8000 rpm and the variation to the diameter of an inducer were taken as design size and 2 times enlarged size. The major results of the present study were as follows. 1. The hydraulic performance results showed that the similarity was met over the entire test range of the present study. 2. The blade thickness effect was examined and showed that the increased blade thickness resulted in decreased efficiency and worse cavitation performance for large tip clearance. 3. The cavitation performance test results showed that the breakdown NPSH increases as the flow coefficient and does not affected by the rotational speed.