Experimental and numerical study on cavitation performances of a turbopump with and without an inducer

Abstract

The cavitation performances and its internal flows in a centrifugal turbopump with and without a three-bladed axial inducer have been studied both experimentally and numerically. A 3D steady numerical model has been applied to simulate the cavitating flow from the inlet to the outlet ducts of the turbopump with and without an inducer by using ANSYS CFX code. In the present work, to clarify this relationship, we conducted experiments in both cold water ( T = 20°C) and hot water ( T = 80°C) with a focus on the development of vapor volume fraction and head degradation by gradually reducing the inlet pressure from atmospheric conditions to the minimum allowable value at a constant rate of about 3 mbar/s. The measured and predicted cavitation performances of the turbopump with and without an inducer have been compared under different operating conditions and the temperature of the operating fluid.

A Study and Optimization of the Unsteady Flow Characteristics in the Last Stage Impeller of a Small-Scale Multi-Stage Hydraulic Turbine

“…The DES method based on the SST k-ω model was used to develop the unsteady calculations. The Zwart-Gerber-Belamri cavitation model [25][26][27] was used for the cavitation calculations, and the mixture hybrid model was chosen for the multiphase flow model. The cavitation models [28,29] are shown in Equations ( 1) and (2).…”

Improving the Performance of an Innovative Centrifugal Pump through the Independent Rotation of an Inducer and Centrifugal Impeller Speeds

“…The study showed that the concentration of CO 2 had a minimal impact on the inducer's efficiency under non-cavitating conditions but had a significant effect in the presence of cavitation. Bakir et al [11] successfully developed a two-phase cavitation model for inducers and Although the addition of an inducer to the centrifugal impeller enhances the hydraulic performance of the pump, it results in a 20% decrease in the total pressure generated by the pump at a flow rate of 60% of the nominal flow rate due to the generation of pre-rotation [12]. Research on the impact of the radial height of a helical static blade on inducer cavitation performance has shown that the efficiency of the inducer decreases as the radial height of the helical static blade increases within specific ranges [13].…”