Study of an inducer and axial vortex stage

Abstract

Increasing the intake capacity and reducing vibration loads of high-speed pumps is an important task in the development of power systems in the aerospace industry, as well as in the application of such pumps in the energy and oil production sectors. With an improvement in cavitation qualities, pumps can operate at a higher shaft speed, and at a given shaft speed, with lower net positive suction head, that is, at reduced inlet pressure. With increasing shaft speed, the dimensions and weight of the pumps decrease. To increase the cavitation qualities of the pumps, an axial vortex stage (AVS), which is an object of comparison with the inducer, is considered as an upstream device. It is necessary to study the fact of pressure pulsations decrease when using the AVS. The results obtained with computational fluid dynamics to analyze pressure pulsations in the inducer and in the AVS are used in this article.