• 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.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.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2012

In the turbopump inducer of a liquid propellant rocket engine, cavitation is affected by acceleration that occurs during an actual launch sequence. Since cavitation instabilities such as rotating cavitations and cavitation surges are suppressed during launch, it is difficult to obtain data on the influence of acceleration on cavitation instabilities. Therefore, as a fundamental investigation, in the present study, a three-blade cyclic cascade is simulated numerically in order to investigate the influence of acceleration on time-averaged and unsteady characteristics of cavitation that arise in cascade. Several cases of acceleration in the axial direction of the cascade, including accelerations in the upstream and downstream directions, are considered. The numerical results reveal that cavity volume is suppressed in low cavitation number condition and cavitation performance increases as a result of high acceleration in the axial-downstream direction, also, the inverse tendency is observed in the axial-upstream acceleration. Then, the regions in which the individual cavitation instabilities occur shift slightly to a low-cavitation-number region as the acceleration increases downstream. In addition, in a downstream acceleration field, neither sub-synchronous rotating cavitation nor rotating-stall cavitation are observed. On the other hand, rotating-stall cavitation occurs in a relatively higher-cavitation-number region in an upstream acceleration field. Then, acceleration downstream is robust against cavitation instabilities, whereas cavitation instabilities easily occur in the case of acceleration upstream. Additionally, comparison with the Froude number under the actual launch conditions of a Japanese liquid propellant rocket reveals that the cavitation performance will not be affected by the acceleration under the current launch conditions.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.93-100
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• 2020

The turbopump of the liquid rocket engine adapts an inducer to minimize the cavitation due to the variations of the propellants supply condition. However, the inducer introduces cavitation instabilities which are well-known problems in the engine development. In this paper, operational characteristics by the cavitation instabilities are analyzed and the reliability of the engine is checked when the first stage engine of the KSLV-II is tested at the low inlet pressure conditions. The characteristic frequencies representing the cavitation instabilities of the LOx pump are clearly found in various high frequency sensor signals around the entire engine in addition to the LOx and fuel pump.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.61-67
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• 2018

High-frequency signals are analyzed at the inlet/outlet pipeline and pump casing during cavitation tests of the LOx pump for liquid rocket engines. Root-mean square values of all data are investigated with respect to cavitation number. The values of synchronous, harmonic, and cavitation instability frequencies are also calculated. Pressure pulsations of the inlet and outlet pipelines are affected by cavitation instabilities. The 3x component (i.e., the blade-passing frequency of the inducer) is predominant in the outlet pulsation sensor. This seems to be related to the fact that the number of impeller blades is a multiple of the number of the inducer blades. The cavitation instability is also measured at the accelerometer of the pump casing.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.307-317
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• 2017

In liquid-propellant rockets, POGO instability can occur, in which a fluctuation of propellant supply to the engine, a thrust fluctuation, and a structural vibration are coupled. For the prediction of this instability, it is required to provide dynamic characteristics of the pump represented as the transfer matrix correlating the upstream and downstream pressure and flow rate fluctuations. In the present study, the flow rate fluctuation is evaluated from the fluctuation of pressure difference at the different locations assuming that the fluctuation is caused by the inertia of the flow rate fluctuation. The experiments were performed in some flow conditions, and it was shown that the tendencies of dynamic characteristics are related to excitation frequencies, cavitation numbers and flow rate coefficients.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.283-289
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• 2001

The paper presents the stability characteristics of a rotor-bearing system supported by actively controlled hydrodynamic journal bearing. The proportional and derivative controls including coupled motion are adopted for the control algorithm to control the hydrodynamic journal bearing with a circumferentially groove. Also, the cavitation algorithm implementing the Jakobsson-Floberg-Olsson boundary condition is adopted to predict cavitation regions in the fluid film more accurately than a conventional analysis which uses the Reynolds condition. The stability characteristics of a rotor-bearing system supported by actively controlled hydrodynamic journal bearing are investigated for various control gains with the Routh-Hurwitz criteria using the linear dynamic coefficients which are obtained from the perturbation method. It is found that the speed at onset of the instability is increased for both proportional and derivative control of the bearing. It is also found that the proportional and derivative control of the coupled motion is more effective than that of the uncoupled motion.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.9
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• pp.1432-1437
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• 2001

In this paper, a control algorithm which is synchronously excitating the bearing with whirl speed of rotor is employed to suppress the whirl instability and unbalance response of the rotor-bearing system. Also, the cavitation algorithm implementing the Jakobsson-Floberg-Olsson boundary condition is adopted to predict cavitation regions in the fluid film more accurately than a conventional analysis with the Reynolds condition. The stabilities and unbalance responses of the rotor-bearing system are investigated for various control gains and phase differences between the bearing and journal motion. It is shown that the unbalance response of the system can be greatly improved by synchronous control of the bearing, and there is an optimum phase difference, which gives the minimum unbalance response of the system, for given operating condition. It is also found that the onset speed of the instability can be greatly increased by synchronous control of the bearing.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.18-25
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• 2008

Recent trends of a centrifugal pump are high speed in rotation and high pressure in head with high efficiency to meet the demands of industries. However, the newly developed pumps make trouble of pressure pulsation in the pumping system by performance instability of the pump. Moreover, cavitation, which is a main obstacle of high rotational speed in the pump, occurring in an impeller gives serious damages to the impeller and casing wall. The purpose of present study is not only to develop a simple method to improve pump performance but also to suppress the occurrence of cavitation in the centrifugal pump by use of J-Groove. J-Groove is a shallow groove installed on the casing wall in the meridional direction. The application of J-Groove to a centrifugal pump with a new type impeller of "semi-closed impeller" has proved its effectiveness as a useful countermeasure of the unstable pump performance and cavitation. The results show that the combination of semi-closed impeller and J-Groove can be applied successfully and improves both the pump performance and suction performance.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2017.05a
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• pp.1093-1098
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• 2017

High frequency signals are analyzed which are measured at the inlet / outlet pipeline and pump casing during cavitation tests of the LOx pump for the liquid rocket engine. RMS values of data are shown according to the cavitation number. RMS values of the synchronous frequency, its harmonic frequencies and frequencies of cavitation instabilities are also calculated. The pressure pulsations of the inlet and outlet pipeline are affected by cavitation instabilities. 3x component is predominant in the outlet pulsation sensor since 3x component generated at the inducer is amplified at the impeller. The cavitation instability is also found at the accelerometer signal of the casing.