Predicting performance of axial pump inducer of LOX booster turbo-pump of staged combustion cycle based rocket engine using CFD

[摘要] For low cost, high thrust, space missions with high specific impulse and high reliability, inert weight needs to be minimized and thereby increasing the delivered payload. Turbopump feed system for a liquid propellant rocket engine (LPRE) has the highest power to weight ratio. Turbopumps are primarily equipped with an axial flow inducer to achieve the high angular velocity and low suction pressure in combination with increased system reliability. Performance of the turbopump strongly depends on the performance of the inducer. Thus, for designing a LPRE turbopump, demands optimization of the inducer geometry based on the performance of different off-design operating regimes. In this paper, steady-state CFD analysis of the inducer of a liquid oxygen (LOX) axial pump used as a booster pump for an oxygen rich staged combustion cycle rocket engine has been presented using ANSYS® CFX. Attempts have been made to obtain the performance characteristic curves for the LOX pump inducer. The formalism has been used to predict the performance of the inducer for the throttling range varying from 80% to 113% of nominal thrust and for the different rotational velocities from 4500 to 7500 rpm. The results have been analysed to determine the region of cavitation inception for different inlet pressure.

[发布机构] Cryogenic Engineering Centre, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur; 721302, India^1

[效力级别] 物理学 [学科分类] 材料科学（综合）

[关键词] Cavitation inception;High specific impulse;Liquid propellant rocket engine;Performance characteristics;Power-to-weight ratios;Rotational velocity;Suction pressures;System reliability