• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• 제7권3호
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• pp.94-100
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• 2014

In double-suction centrifugal pumps, it was found that cavitation instabilities occur with vibration and a periodic chugging noise. The present study attempts to identify cavitation instabilities in the double-suction centrifugal pump by the experiment and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Cavitation instabilities in the tested pump were classified into three types of instabilities. The first one, in a range of cavitation number higher than breakdown cavitation number, is cavitation surge with a violent pressure oscillation. The second one, in a range of cavitation number higher than the cavitation number of cavitation surge, is considered to be rotating cavitation and causes the pressure oscillation due to the interaction of rotating cavitation with the impeller. Last one, in a range of cavitation number higher than the cavitation number of rotating cavitation, is considered to be a surge type instability.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• 제5권1호
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• pp.1-9
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• 2012

In the turbopump inducer of a liquid propellant rocket engine, cavitation is affected by acceleration that occurs during an actual launch sequence. Since cavitation instabilities such as rotating cavitations and cavitation surges are suppressed during launch, it is difficult to obtain data on the influence of acceleration on cavitation instabilities. Therefore, as a fundamental investigation, in the present study, a three-blade cyclic cascade is simulated numerically in order to investigate the influence of acceleration on time-averaged and unsteady characteristics of cavitation that arise in cascade. Several cases of acceleration in the axial direction of the cascade, including accelerations in the upstream and downstream directions, are considered. The numerical results reveal that cavity volume is suppressed in low cavitation number condition and cavitation performance increases as a result of high acceleration in the axial-downstream direction, also, the inverse tendency is observed in the axial-upstream acceleration. Then, the regions in which the individual cavitation instabilities occur shift slightly to a low-cavitation-number region as the acceleration increases downstream. In addition, in a downstream acceleration field, neither sub-synchronous rotating cavitation nor rotating-stall cavitation are observed. On the other hand, rotating-stall cavitation occurs in a relatively higher-cavitation-number region in an upstream acceleration field. Then, acceleration downstream is robust against cavitation instabilities, whereas cavitation instabilities easily occur in the case of acceleration upstream. Additionally, comparison with the Froude number under the actual launch conditions of a Japanese liquid propellant rocket reveals that the cavitation performance will not be affected by the acceleration under the current launch conditions.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• 제1권1호
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• pp.38-46
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• 2008

Studies on cavitation instabilities of hydrofoils and cascades are reviewed to obtain fundamental understandings of the instabilities observed in turbopump inducers. Most of them are based on the stability analysis of two-dimensional inviscid cavitating flow. The most important finding of the analysis is that the cavitation instabilities depend only on the mean cavity length. For a hydrofoil, the characteristic length is the chord length and partial/transitional cavity oscillation occurs with shorter/longer cavity than 75% of the chord length. For cascades, the characteristic length is the blade spacing and various modes of instabilities are predicted when the mean cavity is longer than 65% of the spacing. In the last part, rotating choke is shown to occur when the cavity becomes longer than the spacing.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• 제2권3호
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• pp.206-214
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• 2009

Alternate blade cavitation, rotating cavitation and cavitation surge in rocket turbopump inducers were simulated by a three dimensional commercial CFD code. In order to clarify the cause of cavitation instabilities, the velocity disturbance caused by cavitation was obtained by subtracting the velocity vector under non-cavitating condition from that under cavitating condition. It was found that there exists a disturbance flow towards the trailing edge of the tip cavity. This flow has an axial flow component towards downstream which reduces the incidence angle to the next blade. It was found that all of the cavitation instabilities start to occur when this flow starts to interact with the leading edge of the next blade. The existence of the disturbance flow was validated by experiments.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• 제3권2호
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• pp.137-149
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• 2010

The purpose of the present research is to suppress cavitation instabilities by using a circumferential groove. The circumferential groove was designed based on CFD so that the tip leakage vortex is trapped by the groove and does not interact with the next blade. Experimental results show that the groove can suppress rotating cavitation, asymmetric cavitation and cavitation surge. However, weak instabilities with higher frequency could not be suppressed by the groove. From the analysis of pressure pattern similar to that for rotor-stator interaction, it was found that the higher frequency components are caused by the interaction of backflow vortices with the inducer blades.

• 한국추진공학회지
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• 제24권6호
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• pp.93-100
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• 2020

액체로켓엔진의 터보펌프는 추진제 상태 변화로 인한 캐비테이션 발생을 최소화하기 위해 인듀서를 사용한다. 그러나 인듀서에서 발생하는 캐비테이션 불안정성은 엔진 개발의 큰 문제점으로 알려져 있다. 본 논문에서는 한국형발사체 1단용 엔진이 낮은 입구압력 조건에서 작동될 때 캐비테이션 불안성에 의한 엔진 작동 특성을 검토하고 엔진의 신뢰도를 확인하고자 하였다. 산화제펌프의 캐비테이션 불안정성을 대표하는 특성주파수가 산화제펌프와 연료펌프를 비롯한 엔진 여러 곳에 부착된 동압센서, 가속도계, 스트레인 게이지 등의 신호에서 뚜렷하게 관찰되었다.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• 제9권2호
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• pp.160-168
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• 2016

In high speed turbopumps, cavitation occurs and often causes the flow instabilities such as cavitation surge and rotating cavitation. The occurrence of these cavitation instabilities is considered to relate to dynamic characteristics of the cavitation, which are modelled using a cavitation compliance and a mass flow gain factor. Various types of cavitation such as a blade surface cavitation, a tip leakage vortex cavitation, and a backflow vortex cavitation occur at the same time in the inducer and the dynamic characteristics of each cavitation have not been clarified yet in experiments. Focusing on the blade surface cavitation as one of fundamental cavitation, we investigated the dynamic characteristics of the blade surface cavitation on a flat plate hydrofoil in experiments in the present study.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• 제2권1호
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• pp.40-54
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• 2009

Cavitation instabilities in turbo-machinery such as cavitation surge and rotating cavitation are usually explained by the quasi-steady characteristics of cavitation, mass flow gain factor and cavitation compliance. However, there are certain cases when it is required to take account of unsteady characteristics. As an example of such cases, cavitation surge in industrial centrifugal pump caused by backflow vortex cavitation is presented and the importance of the phase delay of backflow vortex cavitation is clarified. First, fundamental characteristics of backflow vortex structure is shown followed by detailed discussions on the energy transfer under cavitation surge in the centrifugal pump. Then, the dynamics of backflow is discussed to explain a large phase lag observed in the experiments with the centrifugal pump.

• 항공우주시스템공학회지
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• 제14권5호
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• pp.100-106
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• 2020

액체로켓엔진용 터보펌프는 작동 조건에서 캐비테이션 불안정성에 노출되며, 이는 터보펌프의 안정성에 영향을 미친다. 이를 확인하기 위해 터보펌프 조립체 시험 중 나타난 캐비테이션 불안정성의 특징을 살펴보았다. 시험 중 산화제펌프는 대표적인 캐비테이션 불안정성인 초조화 선회 캐비테이션과 부착 비대칭 캐비테이션에 노출되었다. 캐비테이션 불안정성이 발생되지 않는 조건에서 작동했던 연료펌프에서도 산화제펌프의 초조화 선회 캐비테이션에 의한 진동이 확인되었다.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• 제2권4호
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• pp.439-448
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• 2009

Three inducers were designed to avoid cavitation instabilities. This was accomplished by avoiding the interaction of tip cavity with the leading edge of the next blade. The first one was designed with extremely larger leading edge sweep, the second and third ones were designed with smaller incidence angle by reducing the inlet blade angle or increasing the design flow rate, respectively. The inducer with larger design flow rate has larger outlet blade angle to obtain sufficient pressure rise. The inducer with larger sweep could suppress the cavitation instabilities in higher flow rates more than 95% of design flow coefficient, owing to weaker tip leakage vortex cavity with stronger disturbance by backflow vortices. The inducer with larger outlet blade angle could avoid the cavitation instabilities at higher flow rates, owing to the extension of the tip cavity along the suction surface of the blade. The inducer with smaller inlet blade angle could avoid the cavitation instabilities at higher flow rates, owing to the occurrence of the cavity first in the blade passage and its extension upstream. The cavity shape and suction performance were reasonably simulated by three dimensional CFD computations under the steady cavitating condition, except for the backflow vortex cavity. The difference in the growth of cavity for each inducer is explained from the difference of the pressure distribution on the suction side of the blades.