Numerical investigation of effect of a centrifugal boost impeller on suction performance of an aircraft hydraulic pump

An integrated boost impeller can effectively improve the suction performance of an aircraft hydraulic pump (AHP). It must be designed very carefully; however, few studies thus far have investigated boost impellers. To explore the effect of the boost impeller, this study developed a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model for an AHP based on the k-ε turbulence model and full cavitation model. The results of verification tests demonstrated that the model is reliable for simulating the delivery characteristics of piston pumps and the boost capacity of the inlet impeller. Steady-state simulations reveal that the boost impeller can remarkably improve the suction performance and mitigate the cavitation damage due to insufficient fluid filling while only consuming a small proportion of the total input power. Transient-state simulations show that the pump with an impeller is more capable of catching up with a sudden increase in flow demand, and it has a lower suction flow ripple and impact. However, such a boost impeller also has some limitations such as magnifying the suction pressure fluctuation and having little effect on mitigating the cavitation caused by the back-flow jet.