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ACTA AERONAUTICAET ASTRONAUTICA SINICA ›› 2019, Vol. 40 ›› Issue (5): 122609-122609.doi: 10.7527/S1000-6893.2018.22609

• Fluid Mechanics and Flight Mechanics • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Matching effect between inducer and impeller in a liquid rocket engine propellant pump

YANG Baofeng1, LI Bin1,2, CHEN Hui1, LIU Zhanyi1   

  1. 1. Science and Technology on Liquid Rocket Engine Laboratory, Xi'an Aerospace Propulsion Institute, Xi'an 710100, China;
    2. Academy of Aerospace Propulsion Technology, Xi'an 710100, China
  • Received:2018-08-15 Revised:2018-10-08 Online:2019-05-15 Published:2018-10-29
  • Supported by:
    National Basic Research Program of China (613321)

Abstract: The relative circumferential position between the inducer and the impeller (clocking effect) has a considerable impact on the performance and pressure pulsations of the pump, which is, however, often ignored by designers. To evaluate the influence of this effect,a 3D numerical simulation is performed based on the Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) method. The entropy production method and pressure pulsation intensity coefficient are employed to evaluate the energy loss and pressure pulsation characteristics of the pump and clarify the formation mechanism of this clock effect. The numerical results show that the clocking effect has certain influence on the external characteristics of the pump. The head and efficiency first decrease and then slowly increase with the increase of the matching angle, and the maximum variation of the head and efficiency are 0.8% and 1.2%, respectively. The formation of this is owing to the different extents of the separation vortices in the impeller passage and the impeller blade wake in the diffuser inlet as well as the backflow vortices in the diffuser blade passage near volute tongue. The clocking effect has great impact on the rotor-stator interaction effect between the impeller and the diffuser. When the inducer blade trailing edge is located in the middle of two adjacent impeller blades, 3 times of the rotating frequency component of pressure pulsation can be eliminated, and the pressure pulsation level in the pump is dramatically reduced with the Root Mean Square (RMS) value of the pressure pulsation in the rotor-stator interaction region and the diffuser blade surface near the volute tongue decreasing by 14.5% and 16.7%, respectively.

Key words: turbopump, inducer, impeller, liquid rocket engine, clocking effect, entropy production, pressure pulsation

CLC Number: