Abstract
Mini turbo-pumps which have a diameter smaller than 100 mm are utilized in many fields. It is desirable that the mini
turbo-pump design is as simple as possible due to the limitation of the precision for manufacture. But the design method for
the mini turbo-pump is not established. Therefore, we started the research of the mini turbo-pump for the purpose of development
of high performance mini turbo-pump with simple structure. It is clarified from the numerical results that head and
efficiency decrease drastically with the increase of the tip clearance and the flow condition near the tip region is influenced
by the leakage flow from the blade tip. In the present paper, the performance of the mini turbo-pump is shown and the internal
flow condition is clarified with the results of the numerical flow analysis. Furthermore, the effects of the tip clearance on
the performance are investigated and high performance rotor design for mini turbo-pump would be considered.
