• 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.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.37-43
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• 2008

An inducer is employed in a modern rocket feed system because it allows a turbopump system to operate at a high speed with low inlet pressures so as to minimize the weight and the size of the system. Cavitation performance can be improved by installing an inducer to the pump, enabling to increase the operational speed of the pump. The main purpose of an inducer is to increase the static pressure prior to an impeller to enable the impeller to operate satisfactorily under cavitation environments. In the present study the effects of axial distance between the inducer and the impeller on the performance of the pump were studied using both experimental and computational methods. Two inducers with different axial length were used for the experiments and the pump performances were measured. The experimental results show that the suction performance decreases as the axial gap between the inducer and impeller is increased.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2002.12a
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• pp.33-40
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• 2002

The hydraulic performance analysis of a pump system composed of an inducer and impeller for the application on turbopumps has been performed using three-dimensional Wavier-Stokes equations. A simple mixing-plane method and a full interaction method are used to simulate inducer/impeller interactions. The computations adopting two methods show almost similar results due to the weak interaction between the inducer and impeller since the inducer outlet blade angle is rather small. But, because the inducer and the impeller are closely spaced near the shroud region at the interface, flow angles at the impeller inlet show different results between two methods. Thus, the full interaction method predicted about $2\%$ higher pump performance than the mixing-plane method. And the effects of prewhirl at the impeller inlet are also investigated. As the inlet flow angle is increased, the head rise and the efficiency are decreased. The computational results are compared with experimental ones. The computational results at the design point show good agreements with experimental data. But the computation was found to under-predict the head rise at high mass flow rates compared to the experiment, further study must be followed in terms of the computation and experiment.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.6 no.4 s.21
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• pp.50-57
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• 2003

The hydraulic performance analysis of a turbopump with an inducer for a liquid rocket engine was performed using three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations. A simple mixing-plane method and a full interaction method were used to simulate inducer/impeller interaction. Two methods show almost similar results due to the weak interaction between the inducer and impeller since the inducer outlet blade angle is lather small. But, when the inducer and the impeller are closely spaced near the shroud region, flow angles at the impeller inlet show different results between two methods. Thus, the full interaction method predicts about $2\%$ higher pump performance than the mixing-plane method. And the effects of prewhirl at the impeller inlet are also investigated. As the inlet flow angle is increased, the head rise and the efficiency are decreased. The computational results are compared with measured ones. The computational results at the design point show good agreements with experimental data, however under-predicts the head rise at high mass flow rates compared to the experiment.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.8 no.1 s.28
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• pp.23-29
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• 2005

Steady and unsteady cavitation characteristics of turbopump inducer were investigated in this paper. To investigate the effect of blade angle on the inducer performance, three inducers with inlet tip blade angle of $7.8^{\circ},\;7.0^{\circ},\;6.1^{\circ}$, respectively, were tested. For $7.8^{\circ},\;7.0^{\circ}$ inducers in the non-cavitating condition, head decreased linearly with flow rate, but head-flow rate curve had a dip at the flow coefficient ${\psi}=0.065$ for $6.1^{\circ}$ inducer. Attached cavitation and cavitation surge were found in the $7.8^{\circ},\;7.0^{\circ}$ inducers in the cavitation tests. During the attached cavitation one cell rotated at the same rotational speed as that of the inducer. The cavitation surge did not rotate and the oscillating frequency was $7{\sim}20\;Hz$. From the curve of the critical cavitation number versus flow rate, it was found that the steady cavitation performance of $6.1^{\circ}$ inducer was much lower than that of $7.8^{\circ},\;7.0^{\circ}$ inducers.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.35 no.11
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• pp.1022-1027
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• 2007

Experimental and computational studies on a turbopump inducer with and without a bearing strut were performed to evaluate the effects of a strut on the performance of an inducer. Head rise, efficiency and 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.

• 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.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.12a
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• pp.333-339
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• 2003

Steady and unsteady cavitation characteristics of turbopump inducer were investigated in this paper. To see the effect of blade angle on the inducer performance, three inducers with inlet tip blade angle of $7.8^{\circ},\;7.0^{\circ},\;6.1^{\circ}$, respectively, were tested. For $7.8^{\circ},\;7.0^{\circ}$ inducers in the non-cavitating condition, head decreased linearly with flow rate, but head-flow rate curve had a dip at the flow coefficient ${\Phi}=0.065\;for\;6.1^{\circ}$ inducer. Rotating cavitation and cavitation surge were found in the $7.8^{\circ},\;7.0^{\circ}$ inducers in the cavitation tests. During the rotating cavitation one cell rotated at the same rotational speed as that of the inducer. The cavitation surge did not rotate and the oscillating frequency was $7{\sim}20\;Hz$. From the curve of the critical cavitation number versus flow rate, it was found that the steady cavitation performance of $6.1^{\circ}$ inducer was much lower than that of $7.8^{\circ},\;7.0^{\circ}$ inducers.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.12a
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• pp.353-360
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• 2003

Hydraulic performance and cavitation characteristics of fuel pump in turbo-pump were studied experimentally. The fuel pump has a centrifugal impeller with a separate inducer. In this paper, flow characteristics of inducer and impeller was experimentally investigated separately and together. Especially static pressure distribution of Inducer was examined in non-cavitation and cavitation conditions.