Abstract
Historically inducer pumps have been designed with low inlet diffusion that allows for a gradual pressure rise through the machine that has the ability to slowly collapse any cavitation bubbles that may be present. A novel cavitation control device has been developed by researchers at ConceptsNREC that has been shown in previous experimental work to greatly improve the suction performance of a traditionally designed machine. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has been employed to understand the effectiveness of the cavitation control device (CCD) at controlling the conditions that lead to cavitation inception and to determine the impact that the CCD has on the flow. Also the upper limit of design incidence ratio where the CCD is no longer able to control the factors that lead to cavitation inception was to be determined through the CFD approach. All machine geometries and test data were provided by researchers at ConceptsNREC. Two cases were selected for validation work and 32 additional designs were employed in a parametric study where the flow coefficient and design incidence ratio were varied over a typical range of interest for a turbopump application. The results of this computational work show that the CCD is able to control the factors that lead to early cavitation inception. The research shows that the addition of the CCD has an overall stabilizing affect on the flow by significantly decreasing the incidence at the leading edge of the blade. It has been determined that the maximum design incidence ratio where the CCD is able to effectively control the factors that lead to cavitation inception is dependent on the flow coefficient and in general the maximum design incidence ratio decreases as the flow coefficient is increased.
Degree
MS
College and Department
Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology; Mechanical Engineering
Rights
http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Krise, Jeffrey Raymond, "Characterization of High Inlet Diffusion Low Flow Coefficient Inducer Pumps for Space Propulsion in the Presence of a Cavitation Control Device" (2011). Theses and Dissertations. 6212.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/6212
Date Submitted
2011-03-01
Document Type
Thesis
Handle
http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd4224
Keywords
Jeffrey Krise, cavitation, rocket turbopump, inducer
Language
english