Abstract
Pumps for a turbopump generally operate under high rotational speeds and large head rise conditions. Therefore, reliability is a prime design requirement. Floating-ring type seals are frequently employed in a turbopump because of robustness despite of low hydraulic efficiency. There are many researches on the floating-ring seal itself, but the effects of the floating ring seals on the performance of the whole pump are not widely studied in spite of their importance. In the present study, experimental and computational studies on the effects of the radial clearance of the floating ring seals on the performance of a pump were performed. The experimental results showed that the head rise and efficiency increased as the floating-ring seal clearance was decreased. The results also showed the possibility that the leakage flow which was injected to the inlet of the inducer could enhance the suction performance of the inducer by diminishing the size of the backflows.