Effect of the number of blades on the performance and cavitation instabilities of a turbopump inducer with an identical solidity

An inducer is forward-attached to an impeller to improve the suction performance of the impeller. This paper documents an experimental and a numerical investigation of the number of blades effect of a turbopump inducer with an identical solidity. As the number of blades increased for the increased solidity inducer, the efficiency was significantly reduced because of the skin friction loss. However, the efficiency was slightly decreased for the same solidity inducer. Nonetheless, no difference was observed in the cavitation inception point for the solidity effect. The rotating cavitation was only observed in three-bladed inducers. In the case of three-bladed inducers, the higher order rotating cavitation disappeared as the solidity decreased.