Abstract
New type of cavitation instability was observed in the inducer of fuel turbopump of H-II A rocket LE-7 A engine. This instability occurred at a small cavitation number at which the head of the inducer starts to decrease, and its propagation velocity ratio was about 0.5. In the present study, this cavitation instability is analyzed theoretically by using a cavity model with a cavity wake. The model can predict the head decrease due to cavitation (choke by cavitation) and also the positive slope of performance curve as observed in experiments. A stability analysis predicts a mode with the propagation velocity ratio of 0.5∼0.7 within the operating range where the performance curve has positive slope.
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