Abstract

The cavitation behavior of a four-blade rocket engine turbopump inducer was simulated by the CFD code Fine/TurboTM. The code was modified to take into account a cavitation model based on a homogeneous approach of cavitation, coupled with a barotropic state law for the liquid/vapor mixture [1–4]. In the present study, the numerical model of unsteady cavitation was applied to a four-blade cascade drawn from the inducer geometry. Unsteady behavior of cavitation sheets attached to the inducer blade suction side depends on the flow rate and cavitation number σ. Numerical simulations of the transient evolution of cavitation on the blade cascade were performed for nominal flow rate and different cavitation numbers, taking into account simultaneously the four blade-to-blade channels. Depending on the flow parameters, steady or unsteady behaviors spontaneously take place. In unsteady cases, sub synchronous or super synchronous regimes were observed. Some mechanisms responsible for the development of these instabilities are proposed and discussed.

Highlights

  • One of the most prejudicial consequences of the cavitation in the rocket engine turbopump inducers is the generation of system and machinery instabilities

  • QUALITATIVE RESULTS Several four-channel computations are performed at nominal flow rate, for different cavitation number σ varying from low cavitating conditions down to the final performance drop of the cascade

  • The performance drop of the cascade is directly related to the evolution of the blade load illustrated by Figure 6: the appearance of cavitation structures at the pressure side of the blade leads to the decrease of the applied mechanical torque, and to the performance drop

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Summary

Numerical analysis of cavitation instabilities in inducer blade cascade

To cite this version: Benoît Pouffary, Regiane Fortes Patella, Jean-Luc Reboud. Numerical analysis of cavitation instabilities in inducer blade cascade. ASME 2005 Fluids Engineering Division Summer Meeting, Jun 2005, Houston, United States. HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés

INTRODUCTION
Periodicity conditions
Static pressure coefficient ψ vs σdownstream
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CONCLUSION
This research was supported by the French space agency

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