Critical cavitation coefficient analysis of a space low specific centrifugal pump with micro gravity

Centrifugal pump was used in the loop as a baselined unit. The flow rate of the pump was very small, while the head was high. This space pump must work stable for a long time (more than a year), so the performance of the pump attracted public attention. The rotational speed of the impeller was limited for stability, so the pump belonged to low specific centrifugal pump. In this paper, a single-phase centrifugal pump, which was designed for single-phase fluid loops in satellites, was modeled for numerical simulation. The hydraulic region of the pump was discretized by structured mesh. Three dimensional (3-D) flow in the pump was studied by the use of computational fluid dynamics. Partially-Averaged Navier- Stokes (PANS) model based on RNG k-e turbulence model was developed for the simulation of the unsteady flow. Velocity inlet and pressure outlet was used as the boundary conditions. Interface was used between the impeller and the casing, as well as the impeller and inlet pipe. Performances and pressure fluctuation of the pump were investigated. The dominant frequency of the pressure fluctuation is blade passing frequency at the region close to the tongue of the casing, while it is twice of blade passing frequency at the other region.