• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.94-100
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• 2014

In double-suction centrifugal pumps, it was found that cavitation instabilities occur with vibration and a periodic chugging noise. The present study attempts to identify cavitation instabilities in the double-suction centrifugal pump by the experiment and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Cavitation instabilities in the tested pump were classified into three types of instabilities. The first one, in a range of cavitation number higher than breakdown cavitation number, is cavitation surge with a violent pressure oscillation. The second one, in a range of cavitation number higher than the cavitation number of cavitation surge, is considered to be rotating cavitation and causes the pressure oscillation due to the interaction of rotating cavitation with the impeller. Last one, in a range of cavitation number higher than the cavitation number of rotating cavitation, is considered to be a surge type instability.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2004.03a
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• pp.240-244
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• 2004

Characteristics of steady and unsteady cavitation in a turbopump inducer were investigated in this paper. To see the effect of tip clearance on the inducer performance, three cases of tip clearance were tested. The helical inducer, which has two blades with inlet tip blade angle of 7.8 degree and tip solidity of 2.7, was tested in the water. In the non-cavitating condition, the inducer head decreased with increase in the tip clearance. Rotating cavitation and cavitation surge were observed through unsteady pressure measurements at the inducer inlet. The cell number and propagation speed of the rotating cavitation were determined through cross-correlation analysis. During the rotating cavitation one cell rotated at the same rotational speed as that of the inducer rotation and the cavitation surge did not rotate. The critical cavitation number increased with increase in the tip clearance at the same flow rate, but the change of critical cavitation number was small at the nominal flow rate.

• 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.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.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.128-135
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• 2022

Cavitation occurs inevitably in marine propellers rotating at high speed in the water, which is a major cause of underwater radiated noise. Cavitation-induced noise from propellers rotating at a specific frequency not only reduces the sonar detection capability, but also exposes the ship's location, and it causes very fatal consequences for the survivability of the navy vessels. Therefore cavity inception speed (CIS) is one of the important factors determining the special performance of the ship. In this study, we present a method using computer vision that can detect and quantitatively estimate tip vortex cavitation on a propeller rotating at high speed. Based on the model test results performed in a large cavitation tunnel, the effectiveness of this method was verified.

• 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.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.100-106
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• 2020

Turbopumps for liquid rocket engines are exposed to various cavitation instabilities under their operating conditions. The instabilities affect the stability of the turbopumps. To make sure of the stability of the turbopump of KSLV-II, the present work examined the characteristics of the cavitation instabilities during the turbopump assembly test. In the test, the LOx pump was operated under super-synchronous rotating cavitation and attached to uneven cavitation. In the vibration analysis of the fuel pump, the characteristic frequency by the super-synchronous cavitation of the LOx pump was clearly shown.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.160-168
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• 2016

In high speed turbopumps, cavitation occurs and often causes the flow instabilities such as cavitation surge and rotating cavitation. The occurrence of these cavitation instabilities is considered to relate to dynamic characteristics of the cavitation, which are modelled using a cavitation compliance and a mass flow gain factor. Various types of cavitation such as a blade surface cavitation, a tip leakage vortex cavitation, and a backflow vortex cavitation occur at the same time in the inducer and the dynamic characteristics of each cavitation have not been clarified yet in experiments. Focusing on the blade surface cavitation as one of fundamental cavitation, we investigated the dynamic characteristics of the blade surface cavitation on a flat plate hydrofoil in experiments in the present study.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.3044-3050
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to analyze the performance of the flow control oil pump for automatic transmission. The numerical model for analysis the performance of the flow control oil pump was develop and the characteristics of the internal flow, discharge flow rate, displacement of outer ring, driving torque, generation of cavitation was investigated according to rotating speed. As a result, the cavitation generation increased as the rotating speed increased. The volumetric efficiency was 90% for 2200 rpm and it decreased rapidly, then it decreased about 81% for 5000 rpm. Besides, the cavitation generation was 20%~30% for inlet of suction part, but it reduced below 13% owing to the compression. However, it shows higher cavitation generation for high rotating speed like 5000 rpm.