• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.334-340
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• 2011

Turbo-pumps have weak points, such as the pumping operation is unstable on the positive slope of the head curve and/or the cavitation occurs at the low suction head. To improve simultaneously both weak points, the first author invented the unique pumping unit composed of the tandem impellers and the peculiar motor with the double rotational armatures. The front and the rear impellers are driven by the inner and the outer armatures of the motor, respectively. Both impeller speeds are automatically and smartly adjusted in response to the pumping discharge, while the rotational torques between both impellers/armatures are counter-balanced. Such speeds contribute to suppress successfully not only the unstable operation at the low discharge but also the cavitation at the high discharge, as verified with the axial flow type pumping unit in the previous paper. Continuously, this paper investigates experimentally the effects of the tandem impeller profiles on the pump performances and the rotational speeds against the discharge, using the impellers whose loads are low and/or high at the normal discharge. The worthy remarks are that (a) the unstable operation is suppressed as expected and the shut off power is scarcely large in the smart control, (b) the blade profile contributes to determine the discharge giving the maximum/minimum rotational speed where the reverse flow may incipiently appears at the front impeller inlet, (c) the tandem impeller profiles scarcely affect the rotational speeds, while the loads of the front and the rear impellers are same, but (d) the impeller with the low load must run faster and the impeller with the high load must run slower at the same discharge to take the same rotational torque, and (e) the reverse flow at the inlet and the swirling velocity component at the outlet of the front impeller with the high load require making the rotational speed of the rear impeller with low load fairly faster at the lower discharge.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2014

An impeller is difficult to machine due to the complex, overlapping and twisted shapes that form the blades of an impeller. Therefore, most CAM software companies have developed a CAM module for manufacturing an impeller in addition to their CAM software. However, it is not easy for inexperienced users to machine impellers. The purpose of this paper is to outline the development of an automatic CAM module for the manufacturing of an impeller (E-ICAM) which is based on visual basic language and which uses a CATIA graphical environment in order to simplify the machining of impellers. The automatic CAM module generates a tool path and proposes the recommended cutting condition according to the stock and tool material. In addition, it includes a post-processor for five-axis control machining. Therefore, a user can easily machine impellers using this automation module. There are two types of impellers: the closed and open types. The closed-type impeller consists of the body and cover parts. To combine these two parts, it is necessary to create tap holes on the shroud of the body. Therefore, in the study, a drilling CAM program for a closed-type impeller is developed and manufactured by creating NC data from the developed drilling program. After manufacturing the test specimen, its compatibility was verified.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.185-192
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• 2004

The aeroacoustic characteristics of a centrifugal fan for a vacuum cleaner and its noise reduction method are studied in this paper. The major noise source of a vacuum cleaner is the centrifugal fan. The impeller of the fan rotates at over 30000 rpm, and generates very high-level noise. It was revealed that the dominant noise source is the aerodynamic interaction between the rotating impeller and stationary diffuser. The directivity of acoustic pressure showed that most of the noise propagates backward direction of the fan-motor assembly. In order to reduce the high tonal sound generated from the aerodynamic interaction, unevenly pitched impeller and diffuser, and tapered impeller designs were proposed and experiments were performed. Uneven pitch design of the impeller changes the sound quality while the overall sound power level (SPL) and the performance remains similar. The effect of the tapered design of impeller was evaluated. The trailing edge of the tapered fan is inclined. This reduces the flow interaction between the rotating impeller and the stationary diffuser because of some phase shifts. The static efficiency of the new impeller design is slightly lower than the previous design. However, the overall SPL is reduced by about 4 dB(A). The SPL of the fundamental blade passing frequency (BPF) is reduced by about 6 dB (A) and the 2$\^$nd/ BPF is reduced about 20 dB (A). The vacuum cleaner with the tapered impeller design produces lower noise level than the previous one, and the strong tonal sound was dramatically reduced.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.1-8
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• 2013

The performance of small-size impellers with ruled surfaces was investigated for flank milling over a wide speed range, using computational fluid dynamics analyses and gas bench tests. An impeller with a ruled surface was designed, manufactured, and tested to evaluate the effects of blade loading, the backsweep angle, and the relative velocity distribution on the compressor performance. The simulations and tests were completed using the same compressor cover with identical inlet and outlet channels to accurately compare the performance of the abovementioned impeller with a commercial impeller containing sculptured blades. Both impellers have the same number of blades, number of splitters, and shroud meridional profiles. The backsweep angles of the blades on the ruled impeller were selected to work with the same pinched diffuser as for a sculptured impeller. The inlet-to-exit relative velocity diffusion ratio and the blade loading were provided to maximize the flow rate and to minimize the surge flow rate. The design flow rate, rpm, were selected same for both impellers. Test results showed that for the compressor stage with a ruled impeller, the efficiency was increased by 0.32% with an extended surge margin without a reduction in the pressure ratio as compared to the impeller with the sculptured design. It was concluded that an increased relative velocity diffusion coupled with a large backsweep angle was an effective way to improve the compressor stage efficiency. Additionally, an appropriate blade loading distribution was important for achieving a wide operating range and higher efficiency.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.424-432
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• 2011

Shape parameters and design variables for a centrifugal compressor impeller were investigated for optimizing a centrifugal compressor. In order to compare the performance of an optimized impeller with the performance of the original impeller, an already tested impeller was chosen and design variables for optimization were selected. The meridional shapes at the shroud and at the hub were re-designed using the Bezier curve. The camber-lines of the impeller blade at the hub and at the tip were also expressed by the Bezier curve. The shape curves for impeller could be expressed using 6-8 control points. Among them, eight control points which have strong effect to the shape can be selected as design variables for optimization. Therefore, any impeller which is expressed by data points for its shape can be optimized using few design variables.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.34 no.9
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• pp.1-10
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• 2006

An optimization study on a small turbopump impeller operating at the low specific speed is conducted to obtain high output head at the impeller exit. Its specific speed in SI unit (RPM, m3/sec, m) is 4.0, and the outer diameter is 56mm. On the optimization, the outer diameter of the impeller is maintained constant to restrict the pump size, and an objective function of pressure head is maximized with eight design variables, which are related with designing an impeller shape. The response surface method is used to the optimization scheme, and the commercial code CFX-10 is applied for numerical analysis. The pressure head of the objective function obtained with an optimized impeller is increased by 9.7% compared with that obtained on an impeller designed with typically recommended design parameters. This increment is caused by reducing the recirculation region within the impeller passage.

• 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 Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.9
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• pp.1147-1155
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• 2002

Discharge flows from a centrifugal pump impeller with a specific speed of 150 [rpm, m$^3$/min, m] were experimentally investigated. A large axisymmetric collector instead of a volute casing was installed to obtain circumferentially uniform flow, i.e. without interaction of the impeller and the volute. The unsteady flow was measured at the impeller exit and vaneless diffuser using a hot film probe and a pressure transducer. The flow at impeller exit showed pronounced jet-wake flow patterns. The wake, which was on the suction/hub side at high flow rate, became enlarged pitchwisely on both the hub and the shroud side as the flow rate decreases. The pitchwise non-uniformity of the flow rapidly decreased along the downstream and the non-uniformity almost disappeared at radius ratio of 1.18 for medium flow rate. The mean vaneless diffuser flow was reasonably predicted using a one dimensional analysis when an empirical constant was used to specify the skin friction coefficient. The data can be used for a centrifugal pump impeller design and validation of CFD codes and flow modeling.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.94-101
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• 2015

To investigate the influence of blade profiles on cavitation behavior in impeller of centrifugal pump, a centrifugal pump with five different blade profiles impellers are studied numerically. The impellers with five different blade profiles (single arc, double arcs, triple arcs, logarithmic spiral and linear-variable angle spiral) were designed by the in-house hydraulic design code using geometric parameters of IS 150-125-125 centrifugal pump. The experiments of the centrifugal pump have been conducted to verify numerical simulation model. The numerical results show that the blade profile lines has a weak effect on cavitation inception near blade inlet edge position, however it has the key effect on the development of sheet cavitation in impeller, and also influences the distribution of sheet cavitation in impeller channels. A slight changing of blade setting angle will induce significant difference of cavitation in impeller. The sharp changing of impeller blade setting angle causes obvious cavitation region separation near the impeller inlet close to blade suction surface and much more flow loss. The centrifugal pump with blade profile of setting angle gently changing (logarithmic spiral) has the super cavitation performance, which means smaller critical cavitation number and lower vapor cavity volume fraction at the same conditions.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.3251-3261
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• 1996

Flows were measured in an unshrouded centrifugal impeller. By using a single slanted hot-wire probe and a Kiel probe mounted on the impeller hub disk, the 3-D relative velocities and the rotary stagnation pressures were measured in seven circumferential planes between the inlet and outlet of the impeller rotating at 700 rpm, which diameter is 0.39 meter, and the static pressures and the slip factor at the impeller outlet were estimated from the measured values. Measurements were made for three flow rates corresponding to zero incidence and two others with the greater and the smaller one than zero. From the measured data in these flow rates, the followings were investigated in the impeller passage, the variation of the primary and secondary flows, the leakage flows, the wake's position and its size, the static pressure rise and the loss production mechanism. Furthermore the static pressure and the slip factor were compared with the results of inviscid Quasi-3D calculation.