Influence of peripheral blade angle on performance and stability of axial inducers

The goal of this paper is to compare the experimental performance within the cavitating regime for three axial inducers identified by the leading edge angle at the periphery of the blades, β 1T = 10, 13, 15° and which will be noted as inducer 10°, inducer 13° and inducer 15°. The three-dimensional flow was analysed using the CFD code ‘CFX-BladeGENRELSP +’. This enabled us to explain the unstable and cavitating operation for off-design conditions. A brief bibliographic review of the cavitating regime and the outlines of the design method for the three axial inducers that were studied are first presented. Then, for these inducers; the main results are presented: 1) Overall performance—head coefficient and critical cavitation number (5 and 15 per cent drop) vs. the flow rate; 2) Vibration behaviour vs. the flow rate and the suction pressure; and 3) CFD results, which enable us to explain the unstable experimental behaviour for these inducers.