Challenges in Cavitation in Hydrogen Turbopumps
Various industries such as automotive, energy and industrial equipment has been under pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions due to government regulations to battle climate change. Hydrogen has gained a key role in the decarbonization of energy and propulsion systems. Hydrogen compression using turbopumps poses challenges for operational systems due to low (cryogenic) temperatures and the higher potential for cavitation.
The life and performance of of the turbopumps may be improved by ensuring that the envelope of operating conditions are free of cavitation.
Engineering Solution
Therefore, the engineers must detect cavitation issues early in the design process that will results in significant cost and time savings. Numerical methods to predict both cavitating and non-cavitating hydrogen flow within the turbopump (the device is shown below) is the most effective approach to this problem.
Fig. 1 Liquid hydrogen turbopump
Ansys Solution Benefits
Ansys offers automated preprocessing (i.e. meshing) tools such as TurboGrid to effectively generate blade passage geometries for further CFD analysis. The CFD software (such as Fluent and CFX) incorporates cryogenic fluid properties to account for thermodynamic property variations at low temperatures. This is critical for accurately capturing cavitating flows using multiphase models. Furthermore, the Ansys workflow helps generate pump performance maps for a range operating conditions using automated design studies.
Robust and accurate simulation tools by Ansys for turbopump analysis provides valuable insight into pump performance, leading to new and innovative designs that exceed performance targets.
Fig 2. Validation case for a liquid hydrogen turbopump inducer (Reference [1])
[1] Blumental, R.F. and Kelecy, F.J. "Numerical Predictions of Cavitating flow within a Liquid Hydrogen Inducer", Proceedings of ASME Turbo Expo 2021.
Ozen Engineering Expertise
Ozen leverages its extensive consulting expertise in CFD, FEA, optics, photonics, and electromagnetic simulations to achieve exceptional results across various engineering projects, addressing complex challenges like multiphase flows, erosion modeling, and channel flows using Ansys software.
We offer support, mentoring, and consulting services to enhance the performance and reliability of your hydraulic systems. Trust our proven track record to accelerate projects, optimize performance, and deliver high-quality, cost-effective results for both new and existing water control systems. For more information, please visit https://ozeninc.com.
Suggested blogs
- Ozen Engineering Inc. Blog: Design of a Centrifugal Pump using Ansys TurboSystem
- Ozen Engineering Inc. Blog: Optimizing Cardiac Performance: Ansys Simulation of Artificial Heart Pumps
- Ansys Blog: What is Pump Cavitation and How to Prevent it
