Influence of Thermodynamic Effect on Blade Load in a Cavitating Inducer

Distribution of the blade load is one of the design parameters for a cavitating inducer. For experimental investigation of the thermodynamic effect on the blade load, we conducted experiments in both cold water and liquid nitrogen. The thermodynamic effect on cavitation notably appears in this cryogenic fluid although it can be disregarded in cold water. In these experiments, the pressure rise along the blade tip was measured. In water, the pressure increased almost linearly from the leading edge to the trailing edge at higher cavitation number. After that, with a decrease of cavitation number, pressure rise occurred only near the trailing edge. On the other hand, in liquid nitrogen, the pressure distribution was similar to that in water at a higher cavitation number, even if the cavitation number as a cavitation parameter decreased. Because the cavitation growth is suppressed by the thermodynamic effect, the distribution of the blade load does not change even at lower cavitation number. By contrast, the pressure distribution in liquid nitrogen has the same tendency as that in water if the cavity length at the blade tip is taken as a cavitation indication. From these results, it was found that the shift of the blade load to the trailing edge depended on the increase of cavity length, and that the distribution of blade load was indicated only by the cavity length independent of the thermodynamic effect

Analysis of Acoustic Cavitation Surge in a Rocket Engine Turbopump

In a liquid rocket engine, cavitation in an inducer of a turbopump sometimes causes instability phenomena when the inducer is operated at low inlet pressure. Cavitation surge (auto-oscillation), one such instability phenomenon, has been discussed mainly based on an inertia model assuming incompressible flow. When this model is used, the frequency of the cavitation surge decreases continuously as the inlet pressure of the turbopump decreases. However, we obtained an interesting experimental result in which the frequency of cavitation surge varied discontinuously. Therefore, we employed one-dimensional analysis based on an acoustic model in which the fluid is assumed to be compressible. The analytical result qualitatively corresponded with the experimental result