402 Study on Performance and Internal Flow of Ultra High Speed and Miniature Turbopump

In a miniature turbopump, high speed rotation is required to accomplish required specifications for turbopump of the rocket engine. However, high speed rotation causes cavitation on impeller. In this paper, pump performance, the internal flow and characteristics of cavitation of two impellers with different blade angle were examined numerically. In addition, visualization of internal flow in non-cavitation and cavity on impeller at occurrence of cavitation were subjected by CFD. As a result, back flow at inlet of the impeller was occurred strongly by increased blade angle. Furthermore, conditions of occurrence of cavitation of two impellers were confirmed, and it became obvious that back flow at the inlet of impellers affected the characteristics of cavitation occurrence.