The paper describes an experimental investigation of two similar centrifugal pump impellers of low specific speed. Both impellers show rotating cavitation over a wide range of part load operating points. The occurrence of this phenomenon produces a characteristic shape of creeping head-drop compared to the more usual sudden head-drop at “normal” operation points. The onset of rotating cavitation can be assigned to a certain value of the parameter σ/2α meaning the cavity volume in relation to the incidence angle. Optical analysis by video and high-speed camera techniques illustrates the development of this instability mechanism which is mainly driven by an interaction of the cavity closure region and the following blade. Combining these observations and the results of a fourier-transformation the characteristic propagation frequencies of rotating cavitation can be presented for one impeller.

Different active flow control techniques have been investigated in a 1.5-stage axial-flow compressor. Looking at a low-speed single-stage environment, many researchers have shown that highly loaded compressors are tip critical, showing stall inception caused by short length scale disturbances (spikes). It has been shown by several authors that these disturbances are related to the spillage of endwall flow ahead of the blading (spill forward). For the present work, different tip injection configurations were investigated in order to stabilize the near casing flow, increasing the operating range of the compressor. Stall margin improvement and the impact on stage efficiency are compared and discussed. Oil flow pictures of the casing wall above the rotor and of the stator blades as well as traverse data from pneumatic 5-hole probes show the impact of flow control on rotor and stator performance. Another method of energizing the casing wall boundary layer is the removal of low energy fluid by a circumferential slot above the rotor, which was also studied experimentally. Again, the impact on compressor operating range and efficiency, as well as flow field information collected by oil flow visualization and traverse data are discussed. Comparing the different flow control techniques, it is shown that increasing stall margin is not directly linked to stage efficiency. As described in various publications, discrete tip injection is a very powerful technique as far as range extension is concerned, but it also has substantial drawbacks such as the circumferential inhomogeneity of the rotor exit flow. These inhomogeneities may result in poor stator performance, overall resulting in a drop of stage efficiency. This problem does not occur if circumferential boundary layer removal above the rotor is used. This method however shows much less potential for increasing the operating range.

The paper describes an experimental investigation on stall inception phenomena in a singlestage axial-ow pump, utilizing an oil ow technique and two different photo techniques. Moreover, the unsteady casing wall pressure was measured. Representative results are shown and discussed: the pump characteristic for two different NPSH values, selected oil ow pictures of the casing wall and the rotor blades, the wall pressure distribution at design, selected pictures of the cavitating core of the tip clearance vortex at stable and unstable operating conditions and the visualization of a cross-passage vortex as a deep stall phenomenon. These results allow a number of key features of the stall inception process to be identi ed and to be followed along the unstable part of the pump characteristic.

The paper describes an experimental investigation of the stator hub and blade flow in two different stators of a highly loaded single-stage axial-flow low-speed compressor. The first stator (A) is a conventional design with blades of rectangular planform. The second stator (K) is an unconventional, more advanced design with blades of a special planform, characterized by an aft-swept leading edge with increasing sweep angle towards hub and casing. The experimental results show that stator K exhibits a much better hub performance than stator A, finally leading to a better overall performance of stage K compared to stage A. The better hub performance of stator K is, primarily, the result of a planform effect of the newly introduced blades with an aft-swept leading edge and the aerodynamics of an aft-swept wing.

This paper presents numerical simulations and experimental investigations of the cavitating flow through a centrifugal pump impeller of low specific speed. The experimental research was carried out at the Pfleiderer-Institute of the Technical University of Braunschweig, while the numerical simulations were performed at the Institute for Hydraulic Machinery and Plants at the Technical University of Munich (LHM). The cavitation model used is based on bubble dynamics and is able to describe the complicated and transient growth and collapse of the cavitation bubbles. The model has been implemented in the 3D CFD-code CNS3D developed at the LHM. The CNS3D-code has been applied to simulate the cavitating flow through a centrifugal pump impeller. The computed pump head, incipient NPSH and three-percent head drop are compared to the experimental data. Also the pressure distributions measured on the blades are compared with the computed ones. Finally, the numerically investigated void fraction distributions are shown in comparison with pictures of the cavitation zones on the blade.