Numerical Investigation of the Cavitation in Pump Inducer

Liquefied hydrogen and liquefied oxygen are used as propellants in liquid fuel rockets. These cryogenic liquids are pumped with high pressure turbo-pump to the combustion chamber in the liquid fuel rocket engine to make the system smaller and lighter. In addition, petroleum refineries use special pumps to deliver cryogenic fluids which are very volatile and sensitive to pressure and temperature changes. Cavitation is a major limiting feature when selecting or designing such cryogenic pumps. An inducer is attached to these turbo-pumps or cryogenic pumps to increase their efficiency. It is necessary for the turbo-pump to run very fast to make it smaller. In this condition, cavitation occurs around the inducer because the local static pressure becomes smaller than the vapor pressure. This book is written to study and simulate numerically the non-cavitating and cavitating performance and to predict the cavity profile of a cavitating pump inducer of different geometries and blade profiles operating at nominal and off-design operating conditions using the Finite Volume Method