• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11b
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• pp.2434-2439
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• 2008

This paper was studied on the cavitation instability of a Solution Pump Inducer in an absorption chiller-heater. Inlet pressure of LiBr and rotational speed at nominal mode are 2,800 Pa and 3,500 rpm respectively. Due to the marginal operation of available NPSH, the cavitation performance of the inducer is critical for the stable operation without the deterioration of head performance. In the study, cavitation performance and its mode of instability was investigated experimentally. Water was used as the working fluid and the test inducer was scaled up as 1.75 times for detail measurements and flow visualization. Inlet pressure was controlled by a vacuum pump. This research focused on types of cavitation instability and phenomena to investigate the possibility of harmful damage due to cavitation instability. Casing wall pressure and instantaneous inlet pressure was measured to observe the unsteady flow characteristics. Through the visualization and spectrum analysis of pressure, the occurrence region and intensity of asymmetric cavitation and cavitation surge are analyzed in the test inducer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.264-267
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• 2010

This research focuses on the development of numerical code to deal with compressible two phase flow around three dimensional objects combined with cavitation model suggested by Weishyy et al. with k-e turbulent model. The cryogenic cavitation is carried out by considering the thermodynamic effect on physical properties of cryogenic fluids in physical point of view and implementing the temperature sensitivity in the energy equation of the government equations in numerical point of view, respectively. The formulation has been extensively validated for both liquid nitrogen and liquid hydrogen by simulating the experiments of Hord on hydrofoils. Then, simulations of cavitating turbopump inducers at their design flow rate are presented. Results over a broad range of Nss numbers extending from single-phase flow conditions through the critical head break down point are discussed. In particular, thermal depression effects arising from cavitation in cryogenic fluids are identified and their impact on the suction performance of the inducer quantified.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.113-121
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• 2010

LES(Large Eddy Simulation) with a cavitation model was performed to calculate an unsteady flow for a mixed flow pump with a closed type impeller. First, the comparison between the numerical and experimental results was done to evaluate a computational accuracy. Second, the torque acting on the blade was calculated by simulation to investigate how the cavitation caused the fluctuation of torque. The absolute pressure around the leading edge on the suction side of blade surface had positive impulsive peaks in both the numerical and experimental results. The simulation showed that those peaks were caused by the cavitaion which contracted and vanished around the leading edge. The absolute pressure was predicted by simulation with -10% error. The absolute pressure around the trailing edge on the suction side of blade surface had no impulsive peaks in both the numerical and experimental results, because the absolute pressure was 100 times higher than the saturated vapor pressure. The simulation results showed that the cavitation was generated around the throat, then contracted and finally vanished. The simulated pump had five throats and cavitation behaviors such as contraction and vanishing around five throats were different from each other. For instance, the cavitations around those five throats were not vanished at the same time. When the cavitation was contracted and finally vanished, the absolute pressure on the blade surface was increased. When the cavitation was contracted around the throat located on the pressure side of blade surface, the pressure became high on the pressure side of blade surface. It caused the 1.4 times higher impulsive peak in the torque than the averaged value. On the other hand, when the cavitation was contracted around the throat located on the suction side of blade surface, the pressure became high on the suction side of blade surface. It caused the 0.4 times lower impulsive peak in the torque than the averaged value. The cavitation around the throat caused the large fluctuation in torque acting on the blade.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.162.1-162.1
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• 2010

Cavitation phenomenon has long been a difficult problem that regarded as negative event to fluid machines or industrial facilities. In the latest, however, some engineers became to understand the power of cavitation and use it to cleaning wall after developing cavitation nozzle. In this paper, we introduce new concept for power-generation system using cavitation jet flow maid by nozzle and impulse turbine in vacuum condition. The vacuum needed to make cavitation is generated naturally by Torricelli's vacuum, 10.23m effective head drop without additional power. We analyzed water's boiling and the steam's mean free path according to vacuum purity levels for nozzles and turbine blades. The nozzles make water accelerate in the neck and boil in expansion section of the nozzles. The shape of the impulse turbine is designed for absorption of the molecule's kinetic energy of the steam.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.28-34
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• 2011

A volumetric gear pump is often used in extensive industrial applications to provide both high pressure and sufficiently high flow rate by physical displacement of finite volume of fluid with each revolution. Template mesh function in commercial CFD software, PumpLinx, by which 3-D meshes in the complex region between rotor and housing can be readily generated was employed for 3-D flow simulations. For cavitation analysis full cavitation model was included in 3-D simulations. The results showed high pulsation in pressure and flowrate which is implicated in pump vibration and noise. A model test for cavitation visualization was conducted and the results showed good qualitative agreement with numerical prediction.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.40-46
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• 1998

A set of experiments using a 1/10 scale model pump which was manufactured to simulate performance of reactor coolant pump(RCP) of Y.G.N # 3 and 4, was executed in single phase(at atmospheric pressure and room temperature) and near-saturation(300 ~ 600kPa). The pump characteristics in single phase flow was similar to the characteristics of the RCP. The pump characteristic curves at nearly saturated state were correlated in terms of flow coefficient and head coefficient for subcooled temperature using the cavitation number defined as (equation omitted), which can be predicted the cavitation possibility. The pump behavior around the saturated temperature almost consists with single phase behavior until the cavitation occurs(When cavitation occurs. When the flow coefficient is about 0.12), the pump head rapidly degrades. In this situation, subcooled temperature is about 1.8~8$^{\circ}C$ and cavitation number of model pump is 1.0 ~ 1.7.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.252-255
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• 2011

Supercavitating torpedo uses the supercavitation technology that can reduce dramatically the skin friction drag. The present work focuses on the numerical analysis of the non-condensable cavitating flow around the supercavitating torpedo. The governing equations are the Navier-Stokes equations based on the homogeneous mixture model. The cavitation model uses a new cavitation model which was developed by Merkle(2006). The multiphase flow solver uses an implicit preconditioning scheme in curvilinear coordinates. The ventilated cavitation is implemented by non-condensable gas injection on backward of cavitator cone and the base of the torpedo. The comparison between the without and with ventilated cavitation numerical results, with ventilated cavitation using non-condensable gas injection is more efficient method.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.44 no.3 s.153
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• pp.228-237
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• 2007

The flow characteristics around a horn-type rudder behind an operating propeller of a high-speed large container carrier are studied through a numerical method in fully wetted and cavitating flow conditions. The computations are carried out in a small scale ratio of 10.00(gap space=5mm) to consider the gap effects. The Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equation for a mixed fluid and vapor transport equation applying cavitation model are solved. The axisymmetry body-force distribution technique is utilized to simulate the flow behind an operating propeller. The gap flow, the three-dimensional flow separation, and the cavitation are the flow characteristics of a horn-type rudder. The pattern of three-dimensional flow separation is analyzed utilizing a topological rule. The various cavity positions predicted by CFD were shown to be very similar to rudder erosion positions in real ship rudder. The effect of a preventing cavitation device, a horizontal guide plate, is also investigated.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.50-57
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• 2010

The attachment of inducer in front of main impeller is a powerful method to improve cavitation performance. Cavitation surge oscillation, however, often occurs at partial flow rate and extremely low suction pressure. As the cavitation surge oscillation with low frequency of about 10 Hz occurs in a close relation between the inlet backflow cavitation and the growth of blade cavity into the throat section of blade passage, one method of installing an axi-asymmetrical plate upstream of inducer has been proposed to suppress the oscillation. The inlet flow distortion due to the axi-asymmetrical plate makes different elongations of cavities on all blades, which prevent the flow from becoming simultaneously unstable at all throat sections. In the present study, changes of the suppression effects with the axial distance between the inducer inlet and the plate and the changes with the blockage ratios of plate area to the cross-sectional area of inducer inlet are investigated for helical inducers with tip blade angles of $8^{\circ}$ and $14^{\circ}$. Then a conceivable application will be proposed to suppress the cavitation surge oscillation by installing axi-asymmetrical inlet plate.