Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

The objectives of the present study were to investigate the effects of tip clearance on the performance and flow characteristics of a turbopump inducer by using computational fluid dynamics. Three different tip-clearance sizes were analyzed for design and off-design conditions. The numerical results were validated by comparison with experimental results. Our detailed investigation of the simulated flow fields shows that backflow penetrates farther upstream for large-tip clearances, which means that performance declines rapidly. On the other hand, for small-tip clearances, the extent of backflow is reduced but the development of hub separation in the middle of the passage causes performance degradation. Our results confirm that a particular value of the tip-clearance limits the development of secondary flow in the passage.

Keywords

Turbopump inducer cavitation tip clearance performance backflow

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Yamanishi

Fukao

Qiao

. LES simulation of backflow vortex structures at the inlet of an inducer. J Fluids Eng 2007; 129: 587–594.

Okita

Ugajin

Matsumoto

. Numerical analysis of the influence of the tip clearance flows on the unsteady cavitating flows in a three-dimensional inducer. J Hydrodyn 2009; 21: 34–40.

Kang

Watanabe

Yonezawa

. Inducer design to avoid cavitation instabilities. Int J Fluid Mach Syst 2009; 2: 439–448.

Pouffary

Patella

Reboud

. Numerical simulation of 3D cavitating flows: analysis of cavitation head drop in turbomachinery. J Fluids Eng 2008; 130: 061301–1–10.

Flores

Goncalves

Patella

. Head drop of a spatial turbopump inducer. J Fluids Eng 2008; 130: 111301–1–111301-10.

Choi

Noh

Kim

. Effects of a bearing strut on the performance of a turbopump inducer. J Propul Power 2006; 22: 1413–1417.

Hong

Kim

Choi

. Effect of tip clearance on the cavitation performance of a turbopump inducer. J Propul Power 2006; 22: 174–179.

Yokota

Kurahara

Kataoka

. A study of swirling backflow and vortex structure at the inlet of an induer. JSME Ser B 1999; 42: 451–459.

Bakir

Rey

Gerber

. Numerical and experimental investigations of the cavitating behavior of an inducer. Int J Rotating Mach 2004; 10: 15–25.

10.

Qiao X, Horiguchi H, Kato C, et al. 2004. Numerical study of backflow at the inlet of inducers. In: Proceedings of the 3rd ISFMFE A-1, Beijing, China, pp.141–151.

11.

Kimura T, Yoshida Y and Shimagaki M. Relation between geometries of inducer and backflow and vortex structures. In: 40th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE joint propulsion conference and exhibit, Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA, pp.AIAA2004–4022.

12.

You

Wang

Moin

. Study of tip-clearance flow in turbomachines using large-eddy simulation. Comput Sci Eng 2004; 6: 38–46.

13.

Henderson

Tucker

. Performance investigation of some high speed pump inducers. RPE Tech Note 1962; 214.

14.

Aungier

. Centrifugal compressors: a strategy for aerodynamic design and analysis, New York, NY, USA: ASME Press Inc., 2000.

Effects of tip clearance on performance and characteristics of backflow in a turbopump inducer

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References