• 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.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06e
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• pp.637-642
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• 2001

Performance and cavitation characteristics of a turbo pump inducer which is designed for oxygen pump is experimentally investigated. It is found that the static performance of inducer is dependent on the location of inlet pressure measurement and that enough distance from inducer is ensured for accurate evaluation of performance. With the increase of flow rate. NPSH tends to decrease as opposed to pump characteristics, which seems to be due to the cavitation region.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.6 no.1 s.18
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• pp.6-13
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• 2003

Variations of performance and NPSH of a turbo pump inducer were measured. The flows at the inlet and the outlet of the inducer were also experimentally investigated by measuring flow velocity and angle using a 3-hole Pilot tube. Performance and velocity profiles show a similarity for tested speeds, however not for efficiencies. Strong recirculating flows appears at the inlet of inducer even at the design condition. Cavitating flows were also visualized at several NPSH's.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.21-28
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• 2014

Propellent should be pressurized inside the turbopump to gain high thrust in a projectile. Turbopump is composed of an inducer, which prevents impeller performance deterioration, and an impeller. Several types of cavitation occur inside the inducer, numerous experiments and CFD simulations are conducted. Though, an inducer takes only small portion of total head of the pump and the following impeller determines whole turbopump performance. In addition, low inlet pressure makes the flow to be cavitated not only at the inducer, but also at the impeller in real cases. Therefore, flow through an inducer and an impeller should considered simultaneously. In this study, LOX pump composed of an inducer and an impeller is analyzed by using commercial CFD code ANSYS CFX 13.0. Non-cavitating flow with high inlet pressure and cavitating flow with low inlet pressure are both simulated and head, suction performances are shown. Evolution of the flow and the cavitation by reducing cavitation number and effect of cavitation on pump performance are studied.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.12a
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• pp.776-781
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• 2005

Cavitation is the most serious problem caused in developing high-speed turbopump, and use of an inducer is often made to avoid cavitation in main impeller. Thus, the inducer always operates under the worst condition of cavitation. If it could be possible to control and suppress cavitation in the inducer by some new device, it would also be possible to suppress cavitation occurring in all types of pumps. The purpose of our present study is to develop a new effective method of controlling and suppressing cavitation in an inducer using shallow grooves, named as "J-Groove", J-Groove is installed on the casing wall near the blade tip to use the pressure difference between high pressure region and low pressure region in the axial direction at the inlet of the inducer. The results show that proper combination of backward-swept inducer with J-Groove improves suction performance of turbopump remarkably in the range of partial flow rate as well as designed flow rate. The rotating backflow cavitation occurring in the range of low flow rate and the cavitation surge occurring in the vicinity of the best efficiency point can be almost fully suppressed by installing J-Groove.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.29 no.11 s.242
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• pp.1239-1247
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• 2005

Cavitation is the most serious problem in developing high-speed turbopump, and inducer is often used to avoid cavitation in main impeller. Thus, inducer is always operating in the worst .cavitation condition. If it is possible to control and suppress cavitation in inducer by some new device, it might be possible to suppress cavitation occurring in any type of pumps. The purpose of present study is to develop a new effective method of controlling and suppressing cavitation in inducer using shallow grooves, which is named 'J-Groove'. J-Groove is installed on the casing wall near the blade tip to use the pressure difference between high pressure region and low pressure region of the inducer in an axial direction. The results show that proper combination of backward-swept inducer with J-Groove improves suction performance of turbopump remarkably in the range of partial flow rate as well as designed flow rate. The rotating backflow cavitation occurring in the range of low flow rate and the cavitation surge occurring in the vicinity of the best efficiency point can be almost suppressed by installing J-Groove.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.11
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• pp.1497-1510
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• 2002

The onset of cavitation causes head and efficiency of a main pump to be reduced significantly and generates vibration and noise. In order to avoid these phenomena, the inlet of the pump is fitted with a special rotor called an inducer, which can operate satisfactorily with extensive cavitation. The motivation of this study is to find out cavitation modes from the inducer inlet pressure signals and event characteristics from outlet ones at various operating conditions. The cavitation modes are analyzed by using a cross-spectral density of fluctuating pressures at the inducer inlet. The time-frequency characteristics of wall pressures downstream of the inducer are presented in terms of event frequency, its duration time, and number of events by using the Choi-Williams distribution.

• 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.