• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.382-388
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• 2004

The hydraulic and suction performance of an inducer varies sensitively with the inducer geometry and this paper deals with solidity as the inducer geometry parameter. The typical performance characteristics of a basic inducer was investigated and tests with another three inducers of which the solidity is different from each other were performed, so the effect of solidity on the inducer performance was experimentally investigated. For a fixed flow coefficient, required NPSH of the inducer did not follow the conventional similarity rule, so this paper suggested another empirical formula. The hydraulic and suction performance was measured at four cases of the tip solidity ranged from 1.32 to 2.76. As long as the tip solidity had the value above 1.84, the hydraulic and suction performance of the inducer increased with decrease in the tip solidity. With further decrease in the tip solidity up to 1.32, however, inducer head decreased and the suction performance dropped sharply.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.47-52
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• 2014

An inducer is forward-attached to an impeller to improve the suction performance. This paper described the experimental and numerical investigations on the concept of NPSH similarity about the inducer scale. As Reynolds number decreased for the same scale inducer, the hydraulic performance is slightly reduced because of the viscosity. The suction performance similarity is in good agreement. For different scale inducers, the NPSH similarity did not follow the conventional rule which is proportional to the square of the inducer diameter. A cavity of two times scale inducer grows faster under cavitation inception, and the head is more drop as the fluid passes blades. Because of the simplified cavitation model and vapor pressure, the NPSH similarity dose not have an accuracy. This study suggested an empirical formula for the NPSH similarity.

• 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.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.64-75
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• 2008

During an experimental investigation on a 3-bladed and a 4-bladed axial inducer, a severe surge instability was observed in a range of cavitation number where the blade passage is choked and the inducer head is decreased from noncavitating value. The surge was stronger for the 4-bladed inducer as compared with a 3-bladed inducer with the same inlet and outlet blade angles. For the 4-bladed inducer, the head decreases suddenly as the cavitation number is decreased. The surge was observed after the sudden drop of head. This head drop was found to be associated with a rapid extension of tip cavity into the blade passage. The cause of surge is attributed to the decrease of the negative slope of the head-flow rate performance curve due to choke. Assuming that the difference between the 3 and 4-bladed inducers is caused by the difference of the blockage effects of the blade, a test was carried out by thickening the blades of the 3-bladed inducer. However, opposite to the expectations, the head drop became smoother and the instability disappeared on the thickened blade inducer. Examination of the pressure distribution on both inducers could not explain the difference. It was pointed out that two-dimensional cavitating flow analyses predict smaller breakdown cavitation number at higher flow rates, if the incidence angle is smaller than half of the blade angle. This causes the positive slope of the performance curve and suggests that the choked surge as observed in the present study might occur in more general cases.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.8 no.3 s.30
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• pp.42-47
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• 2005

Effects of a booster inducer on the suction performance of turbopumps are investigated in this paper. To see the effect of the booster inducer, suction performance tests are conducted with and without the booster inducer for three turbopumps. It is shown that the booster inducer can enhance the suction performance of turbopumps when the tip clearance of the main inducers are relatively large. Numerical analysis are also carried out to see the effects of the booster inducer on the performance of the main inducer. The booster inducer is shown to increase the static pressure at the inlet of the main inducer and prevent growing of inlet back flows which are believed to have deleterious effects on the suction performance of the inducer.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.232-238
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• 2009

Unlike usual turbopump inducers, the axial flow pump tested operates very stably at design flow rate without rotating cavitation nor cavitation surge. Flow visualization suggests that this is because the tip cavity smoothly extends into the flow passage without the interaction with the leading edge of the next blade. However, at low flow rate and low cavitation number, choked surge and rotating choke were observed. Their correlation with the performance curve under cavitation is discussed and their instantaneous flow fields are shown.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.2 no.3
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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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• v.1 no.1
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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.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.12a
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• pp.552-557
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• 2004

Effects of a booster inducer on the suction performance of turbopumps are investigated in this paper. To see the effect of the booster inducer, suction performance tests are conducted with and without the booster inducer for three turbopumps. It is shown that the booster inducer can enhance the suction performance of turbopumps when the tip clearance of the main inducers are relatively large. Numerical analysis are also carried out to see the effects of the booster inducer on the performance of the main inducer. The booster inducer is shown to increase the static pressure at the inlet of the main inducer and prevent growing of inlet back flows which are believed to have deleterious effects on the suction performance of the inducer.