The influence of inducer blades’ geometry on the propagation of cavitation instabilities was examined using three and four-bladed inducer, to develop the design criteria that can operate stably over a wide operation range. In industrial centrifugal pumps used for transporting liquefied natural gas at low flow rates and low NPSH, the self-excited oscillations caused by cavitation have been observed. In previous studies, both the effect of the number of inducer blades on pump performance and the effect of the blades’ outlet angle on cavitation instability phenomena were investigated. The main objective of this study was to investigate the effect of the configuration of blade number and outlet angle on the suppression of cavitation instability phenomena at low flow rates.
Narimatsu et al. (Wed,) studied this question.