Developing a numerical framework to study the cavitation and non-cavitation behaviour of a centrifugal pump inducer

Axial inducers are a type of turbo-machinery, which are put in the interior of centrifugal pumps to decrease the impact of pressure reductions, corrosion, and the unsteady of the system. The level of improvement depends on the geometrical and operational parameters of the inducers. Despite its importance, very few studies have been carried out to address the above challenges. The present work explores the impact of tip clearance on the mean blade height ratio, inlet tip blade angle, and surface roughness of the inducer. The main object of this work is to find an optimized inducer to limit the secondary flows over the blades, which in turn improves the pump efficiency and reduces the life cycle costs. In the current study, a model framework is achieved to investigate efficient operational and geometrical parameters on an inducer's non-cavitation and cavitation presentations. The catalyser functioning is simulated by applying a 3D Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model, and the results are assessed against empirical data. The results show a reliable agreement with the empirical data and suggest that the increment of tip clearance in the mean blade height ratio causes the hydraulic performance and the analytical cavitation number to decline in cavitation and non-cavitation conditions. Moreover, the optimum value of 85o is found for the inlet tip blade angle, which improves the non-cavitation performance.