Study on the Cavitating Flows in a Turbopump Inducer

摘要

Experimental and computational studies on the cavitating flow around a turbopump inducer were performed to see the effect of the cavitation on the performance of the inducer. The development of cavitation bubbles around the inducer blades and the head drop of the inducer are observed as the inlet pressure is reduced. The change of the backflow at the inducer inlet is also observed with the development of the cavitation bubbles. The size of the backflow decreases as the inlet pressure is reduced due to the development of the cavitation bubbles around the blades. The relation between the strength of the backflow and the shaft vibration during the head breakdown is analyzed qualitatively. The highest shaft vibration occurs at the onset of the cavitation head drop when the strength of the backflow starts to decrease. The vibration increases as the cavitation number decreases until the onset of the inducer head drop, and then it decreases concurrently with the reduction of the backflow in line with the weakened adverse pressure gradient near the leading edge of the inducer.The predicted suction performance of the inducer was compared with the experimental results. The results show that the computed values of the suction performance are higher than the values obtained through experiments.