CFD Analysis of Cavitation and Acoustics of a High Energy Water Injection Pump

Combustion Research and Flow Technology (CRAFT Tech) utilizes the best CAE tools available to help investigate and understand the complex cavitation phenomena occurring in high energy water injection pumps. The complex geometry and physics of the problem make it a challenge to predict the unsteady interactions between the various components of the pump and the potential for cavitation in the impeller.

The team at CRAFT Tech utilizes Pointwise for preprocessing and relies on its ability to easily manage and organize complex assemblies so they may focus on meshing a single component or multiple components at any time. This allows engineers to rapidly generate multiple blocks resulting in high quality hybrid grid assemblies while maintaining the connectivity between adjacent components to improve interpolation and solution accuracy.

CRAFT Tech's CRUNCH CFD solver is utilized to resolve the unsteady interactions within the pump and the physics involved with predicting cavitation. CRUNCH CFD contains cavitation models as well as the ability to treat the thermodynamic effects of vaporizing fluids. Both single- and two-phase unsteady analyses of the pump system are performed to understand the potential for impeller cavitation and predict the far-field acoustic properties of the pump.

Finally, EnSight is used to help extract, visualize, and communicate the results of the solution to help understand the performance and ensure a proper design of the pump. EnSight's capability to illustrate the implicit motion of the impeller, along with dynamic and flexible post processing environment allows engineers to quickly and easily extract key information from a complex result.

Discover how to:

• Manage complex assemblies and generate high quality hybrid grids using Pointwise.
• Employ complex CFD solver capabilities to predict the potential for impeller blade cavitation and the acoustics of the pump system.
• Efficiently and dynamically extract the salient information from the complex geometric and temporal solution using EnSight.