• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2002.12a
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• pp.41-46
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• 2002

Flow field downstream of an inducer was measured to see the flow and performance characteristics of a turbopump inducer. A large axisymmetric collector instead of a volute casing was installed to obtain circumferentially uniform flow - without interaction of the inducer and the volute. A conventional 3-hole probe was used to measure the flow. At inducer exit axial component of absolute velocity decreased on hub region with decrease in flow rate. Tangential velocity component static pressure, and total pressure increased from hub to tip. Relative flow angle from tangential direction was a little higher than outlet blade angle at flow coefficient $\varphi$=0.087 and 0.073. Dynamic pressure was $53\%$ of the mean total pressure at inducer exit at $\varphi$=0.073.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.6 no.4 s.21
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• pp.38-44
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• 2003

Flow field downstream of an inducer was measured to see the flow and performance characteristics of a turbopump inducer. A large axisymmetric collector instead of a volute casing was installed to obtain circumferentially uniform flow - without interaction of the inducer and the volute. A conventional 3-hole probe was used to measure the flow. At inducer exit, axial component of absolute velocity decreased on hub region with decrease in flow rate. Tangential velocity component, static pressure, and total pressure increased from hub to tip. Relative flow angle from tangential direction was a little higher than outlet blade angle at flow coefficient ${\phi}=0.087$ and 0.073. Dynamic pressure was $53\%$ of the mean total pressure at inducer exit at ${\phi}=0.073$.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.08a
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• pp.519-522
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• 2006

Experimental and computational studies on an turbopump inducer with and without a bearing strut were performed to evaluate the effects of a strut on the performance of an inducer. Global performance data such as head rise and efficiency, and detailed flow characteristics such as surface static pressures were measured and compared with computational results. Generally a good agreement is observed between experimental and computational results, but some discrepancies are observed due to complex flow features such as backflows at the inlet and strut/inducer interactions. For the flow rates where the backflow region is large, installing a strut enhanced the hydraulic performance of the inducer by diminishing the size of the backflows. The results also show that the strut has negligible effect on the suction performance of the inducer.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.12a
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• pp.650-654
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• 2005

Computational and experimental studies on the forward-sweep inducer for the rocket-engine turbopump are presented in comparison with the conventional backward-sweep inducer. It is shown that back flows at the inlet decreases for forward-sweep inducers. And the low pressure region at the back flow are also decreased, which is assumed to promote the suction performance of the inducers. The backward-sweep inducer shows almost the same suction performance as that of the backward-sweep inducers although it has small inlet tip diameter and shorter length. And the efficiency of the forward-type inducer shows better results than the backward-sweep inducer due to the small size of backflows.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.72-78
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• 2003

In the present paper, computational studies on the hydrodynamic behavior of the inducer for the rocket-engine turbopump are presented including the effect of the mass flow rate. As the mass flow rate is increased, the inducer showed better performance with weak back flows which may have deleterious effects upon the anti-cavitation ability. But the adopted inducer showed low head rise with high volume flow rates, which may be caused by the small passage area near the trailing edge. The static pressure distributions at the shroud surface are compared with experimental results showing very good agreements except near the leading edge where strong back flows are present. The overall performance of the inducer such as, efficiency, head rise is also compared with experiments. The computational results are generally in good agreements with experimental ones near the design point, but two results show discrepancy at the high flow rate.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.235-242
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• 2001

Hydraulic performance of LCH4 fuel inducer in turbopump system was predicted by 3-D Wavier-stokes calculation. The inducer was designed initially using 1-D method. Different parameters with blade angle and flow coefficient were set from the initial design one, md computation was fulfilled to assess the redesigned models. Especially, influence of inlet back flow on inducer performance and its effective control were explored. The numerical results showed that through reducing inlet back flow strength., the hydraulic efficiency of inducer could be improved up to about $20\%$ compared to that of the initial design one.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.185-190
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• 2001

The cavitation causes suction performance and efficiency of the high-speed pump to be reduced significantly To diminish these effects, the inducer has been used. Most of the inducer is designed at a maximum efficiency point of the pump, therefore suction performance drop due to effects of flow separation and inlet inverse flow is often observed at off-design point. The objective of this study is to find out the cavitation modes at various conditions by applying event detection technique and to design an inducer reducing cavitation. The pressure fluctuations at each cavitating condition were measured at inducer inlet and outlet locations using pressure transducers, which were located 90 degrees apart from each other to identify the cavitation modes. The time-frequency characteristics were analyzed by using Choi-williams distribution. In the second part of this paper, the inducer design method which uses nominal performance characteristic and onset condition of cavitation is introduced and applied to real situation.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.12a
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• pp.558-563
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• 2004

Experiments were performed to see the effect of radial tip clearance on a turbopump inducer, which has two blades with inlet tip blade angle of 7.8 degree and tip solidity of 2.7. Hydraulic and cavitation tests were done for three cases of tip clearance ratio, that is, 0.026, 0.053, and 0.079. With increase in the tip clearance, inducer head and pressure on the inducer tip decreased. Attached cavitation and cavitation surge were found in the cavitation tests. In the attached cavitation one cell rotated at the same rotational speed as that of the inducer. Cavitation performance deteriorated with increase in the tip clearance. The level of casing vibration increased in the cavitation condition and the level was very high when the attached cavitation appeared.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.9 no.1 s.34
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• pp.19-24
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• 2006

Experiments are carried out to investigate the effect of radial tip clearance on a turbopump inducer, which has two blades with inlet tip blade angle of 7.8 degree and tip solidity of 2.7. Hydraulic and cavitation tests are performed for three cases of tip clearance ratio, that is, 0.026, 0.053, and 0.079. With increase in the tip clearance, inducer head and pressure on the inducer tip decrease. Attached cavitation and cavitation surge are observed in the cavitation tests. In the attached cavitation one cell rotates at the same rotational speed as that of the inducer. Cavitation performance deteriorates with increase in the tip clearance. The level of casing vibration increases in the cavitation condition and the level is very high when the attached cavitation appears.