• 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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• 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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• 2008.03a
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• pp.403-406
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• 2008

The performance of an entire pump system composed of an inducer, an impeller, a volute and seals has been computationally analyzed. A commercial three dimensional Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes method is used in this study. The axial thrust is predicted from the pump 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.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.5 no.3 s.16
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• pp.25-32
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• 2002

Structural and dynamic analyses of inducer and impeller for an oxidizer turbopump are peformed to investigate the safety level of strength and vibration at a design point. Due to high rotational speed of turbopump, effects of centrifugal forces are carefully considered in the structural analysis. Hydrodynamic pressure is also considered as an external force applied to inducer and impeller blades. A three-dimensional Finite Element Method (FEM) is used for linear and nonlinear structural analyses with modified Newton-Raphson iteration method. After the nonlinear trim solution is obtained from the structural analysis, dynamic characteristics are obtained as a function of rotational speed from the linearized eigenvalue analysis at an equilibrium position. According to the results of numerical analysis, the safety margins of strength and vibration resonances are sufficient enough for safe operation within the requited life cycle.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.271-278
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• 2001

Structural and dynamic analyses of inducer and impeller for a oxidizer turbopump are peformed to investigate the safety level of strength and vibration at design point. Due to high rotational speed of turbopump, effects of centrifugal forces are carefully considered in the structural analysis. Hydrodynamic pressure is also considered as an external force applied to inducer and impeller blades. A three dimensional finite element method(FEM) is used for linear and nonlinear structural analyses with modified Newton-Raphson iteration method. After the nonlinear trim solution is obtained from the structural analysis, dynamic characteristics are obtained as a function of rotational speed from the linearized eigenvalue analysis at an equilibrium position. According to the results of numerical analysis, the safety margins of strength and vibration resonances m sufficient enough to be operated safely within the required life cycle.

• 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.

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

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

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.317-320
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• 2011

Hydrogen peroxide turbopump was designed for bi-propellant liquid rocket engine using hydrogen peroxide and kerosene as propellants. Turbopump operation was verified through water tests. Design conditions of hydrogen peroxide turbopump were determined, and impeller was designed. Turbine which drives pump was selected from commercial turbocharger. Gas generator was designed by reference from turbine map. Pump, turbine, gas generator were integrated, and turbopump system was constructed. Turbopump supplied water by 1.47 bar of pressure and as well as 3.4 kg/s of mass flow rate.