Abstract
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.
