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

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

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.41-45
• /
• 2012

The effects of inducer tip clearance on the suction performance of a pump for turbopumps are investigated. Experiments for the pump with inducer tip clearances of 1.8% and 1.4% of blade height were performed. The experimental results showed that the suction performance of the pump increased as the tip clearance decreased. It seems that the suction performance of the pump becomes better with smaller tip clearances because the strength of the inducer backflow becomes weak with the decreased tip clearance.

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

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

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2001.11a
• /
• pp.258-263
• /
• 2001

A fuel pump for a turbopump system has been designed under an international co-work program. The liquid methane fuel pump has an inducer, in front of centrifugal impeller blades, to improve cavitation performance. The three dimensional viscous flow in the fuel pump was investigated through numerical computation. An arrangement of the inducer and impeller has yielded a strong interaction between inducer and impeller blades. The performance of the pump was evaluated from the calculated results. A parametric study was performed for various design variables, and it could oner a database for design parameters to design a fuel pump. A modified design of a fuel pump was proposed by KIMM to improve pump performance.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
• /
• v.16 no.11
• /
• pp.1497-1510
• /
• 2002

The onset of cavitation causes head and efficiency of a main pump to be reduced significantly and generates vibration and noise. In order to avoid these phenomena, the inlet of the pump is fitted with a special rotor called an inducer, which can operate satisfactorily with extensive cavitation. The motivation of this study is to find out cavitation modes from the inducer inlet pressure signals and event characteristics from outlet ones at various operating conditions. The cavitation modes are analyzed by using a cross-spectral density of fluctuating pressures at the inducer inlet. The time-frequency characteristics of wall pressures downstream of the inducer are presented in terms of event frequency, its duration time, and number of events by using the Choi-Williams distribution.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
• /
• v.11 no.5
• /
• pp.37-43
• /
• 2008

An inducer is employed in a modern rocket feed system because it allows a turbopump system to operate at a high speed with low inlet pressures so as to minimize the weight and the size of the system. Cavitation performance can be improved by installing an inducer to the pump, enabling to increase the operational speed of the pump. The main purpose of an inducer is to increase the static pressure prior to an impeller to enable the impeller to operate satisfactorily under cavitation environments. In the present study the effects of axial distance between the inducer and the impeller on the performance of the pump were studied using both experimental and computational methods. Two inducers with different axial length were used for the experiments and the pump performances were measured. The experimental results show that the suction performance decreases as the axial gap between the inducer and impeller is increased.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.18-22
• /
• 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
• /
• v.y2005m4
• /
• pp.243-247
• /
• 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 $55\%$.