Abstract
This paper presents the result of design optimization for three-bladed pump inducer using a three-dimensional inverse design approach, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and DoE (Design of Experiments) taking suction performance and cavitation instability into consideration. The parameters to control streamwise blade loading distribution and spanwise work for inducer were chosen as design optimization variables for the inverse design approach. The volume of the inducer cavity region with a void ratio above 50% was selected as the objective function for inducer suction performance. In order to evaluate cavitation instability by steady CFD, the dispersion of the blade surface pressure distribution on each blade was selected as the evaluation parameter. The effective design parameters on suction performance and cavitation instability were confirmed by sensitivity analysis during the design optimization process. Inducers with specific characteristics (stable, unstable) designed using the effective parameters were evaluated through experiments.
