CFD methods for cavitation modeling in centrifugal and axial pumps of LRE

Currently, design and manufacture of liquid-propellant rocket engines (LRE) are imposed with ever greater reliability requirements. Accordingly, the standards for the design and manufacture of rocket engine units are raising. One of these units is a turbopump unit (TNA), which provides continuous supply of liquid components from combustion reaction to the combustion chamber of a rocket engine to create traction or other engine units. TNA is also the main source of pressure increase for these liquid components in front of the LRE combustion chamber. Important requirements are imposed on a turbopump unit (TNA): ensuring work performance and basic parameters for a given resource with the necessary possible pauses of a specified duration; providing all engine operating modes, supplying the fuel components of the required flow rate and pressure, guarantying a high degree of reliability with acceptable entire unit efficiency; providing high anti-cavitation characteristics of the pump in all modes. In the article, the authors summarize the latest results of the study on cavitation in turbopump units of liquid propellant rocket engines alongside with the relevant research in the field of hydraulics. The problems of cavitation in cryogenic liquids, simulation of stall characteristics, and usability of various models to simulate cavitation flow are observed. A solution to the problems of flow modeling was considered with respect to applicability to the following structural elements of LRE units: interscapular space of the screw centrifugal main and booster pumps, axial pre-pump. Particular attention is paid to the implementation of various numerical methods based on the use of various cavitation models, computational fluid dynamics in various CFD packages, and also comparison of results with the model. In summary, the authors draw conclusions about the possibility of applying these methods to solve the problems of the cavitation phenomenon research in LRE.