One-Dimensional Analysis of Cavitation Surge Considering the Acoustic Effect of the Inlet Line in a Rocket Engine Turbopump (3rd Report, Discontinuity of Oscillating Frequency Caused by Nonlinear Factors)

Abstract

The cavitation surge is a kind of instability phenomenon generated in a liquid rocket engine, and it is known that when the inlet pressure of the turbopump of the engine is decreased, the frequency of cavitation surge continuously varied. On the other hand, it was observed in a turbopump test conducted in JAXA that the frequency of cavitation surge discontinuously decreased when the inlet pressure was decreased. Aiming at explaining this curious phenomenon, we conducted the linear analysis using the frequency-domain method and found that this phenomenon was a kind of self-excited vibration coupling the cavitation characteristics with the acoustic resonance of the inlet pipeline. However, the linear analysis could not simulate the phenomenon that a frequency of standing wave changed to the other mode at a certain inlet pressure. Therefore, we conducted the nonlinear analysis using the one-dimensional time-domain method. As a result, it was found that when the inlet pressure was decreased, the damping effect became larger in the higher frequency oscillation because of nonlinear factors. Consequently, the oscillation of higher frequency was intensely weakened and the oscillation of lower one appeared instead.