• 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%.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.18-21
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• 2009

The life of components under high thermal load is typically shorter than other components. The turbopump turbine of liquid rocket is operated under these environments like high temperature and high centrifugal dorce due to high rotating velocity during operating time. These conditions may often cause low-cycle fatigue problem in the turbopump turbine. First of all, to analyze heat stress, ABAQUS/CAE is used and Coffin-manson's equation is used to consider elasticity and plasticity strain. S.W.T's method is used to consider the mean stress effect, using strain history, low-cycle fatigue analysis is done for turbopump turbine which may have FCL(fracture critical location). In this paper, strain life method is applied to analyze low-cycle fatigue.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.9 no.2 s.35
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• pp.39-43
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• 2006

The magnitude of the axial force acting on turbopump bearings has a great influence on the operational reliability and service life of a turbopump. In the turbopump under current investigation the cavity vanes are introduced to the pump shroud casing to control the axial thrust of the turbopump. To investigate the effect of the cavity vanes, 3D computational flow analyses for a propellant pump stage including an inducer, impeller, volute and secondary flow passages are performed with and without the vanes. The results show that the cavity vanes are very effective in reducing the magnitude of axial thrust without notable changes on the overall performance of the turbopump.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.12a
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• pp.354-358
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• 2005

The magnitude of the axial force acting on turbopump bearings has a great influence on the operational reliability and service life of a turbopump. In the turbopump under current investigation the cavity vanes are introduced to the pump shroud casing to control the axial thrust of the turbopump. To investigate the effect of the cavity vanes, 3D computational flow analyses for a propellant pump stage including an inducer, impeller, volute and secondary flow passages are performed with and without the vanes. The results show that the cavity vanes are very effective in reducing the magnitude of axial thrust without notable changes on the overall performance of the turbopump.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.25-33
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• 2011

Rolling contact ball bearings are utilized almost exclusively for liquid propellant rocket engine turbopump. Turbopump ball bearings are required to endure high speed and high load for a poor lubricated condition in cryogenic environment. To evaluate bearing heat generation performance, friction torque is investigated as a function of rotation speed, bearing load and cooling flow rate through an experimental study using water coolants. Radial and axial loads are simultaneously applied to the test bearing by gas pressurized cylinder rod. Endurance performance of bearing has been also verified under the bearing required load for operating condition during total accumulated test time 2,100 sec.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.187-191
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• 2009

A leakage performance test and an endurance performance test of a 75 ton class turbopump mechanical face seal are performed using water under high speed and high temperature environment. A prototype mechanical face seal is manufactured for the purpose of sealing of fuel between a fuel pump and turbine. By simulating operating condition experimentally, the leakage rate and seal carbon wear rate are obtained to evaluate the performance of the prototype mechanical face seal. The test results show the acceptable leakage performance and reasonable wear tendency as well.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.12a
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• pp.346-352
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• 2003

The study was performed to search on alternative material for turbopump parts made of Russian material by analyzing and comparing chemical and mechanical material properties. Iron base material was generally used for turbopump. This material can be categorized into stainless steel and heat resisting steel by quantity of additional elements. Each steel was also classified into austenite steel, ferrite steel, and martensite steel. Alternative materials for turbopump inducer, impeller and casing are chosen by JIS SUS 631 and 321 as a result of this study. Because the material of Russian turbopump turbine may be developed by Russia itself, alternative material can be hardly found. However, Inconel 718 for turbine material is thought to be proper in the aspect of hardness considering general use of this material for turbopump turbine in Japan and France.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.447-450
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• 2012

An analysis of chill-down process was performed for 30 tonf Turbopump-Gas generator coupled tests. The chill-down process must be fulfilled before liquid rocket engine test using cryogenic propellant. Cavitation, damage and/or combustion instability due to bubble of propellant must be eliminated by chill-down process in a test specimen, especially cryogenic pump. The analysis of test data obtained by 30 tonf TP-GG coupled tests was performed in order to be based on the test process of KSLV-II liquid propellant rocket engine which will be developed. To macroscopically understand the process of chill-down from the viewpoint of test procedure the temperatures of important part and total time of chill-down process were analyzed.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.93-100
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• 2020

The turbopump of the liquid rocket engine adapts an inducer to minimize the cavitation due to the variations of the propellants supply condition. However, the inducer introduces cavitation instabilities which are well-known problems in the engine development. In this paper, operational characteristics by the cavitation instabilities are analyzed and the reliability of the engine is checked when the first stage engine of the KSLV-II is tested at the low inlet pressure conditions. The characteristic frequencies representing the cavitation instabilities of the LOx pump are clearly found in various high frequency sensor signals around the entire engine in addition to the LOx and fuel pump.

• 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.