Suppression of Cavitation Instabilities in an Inducer by Circumferential Groove and Explanation of Higher Frequency Components

The purpose of the present research is to suppress cavitation instabilities by using a circumferential groove. The circumferential groove was designed based on CFD so that the tip leakage vortex is trapped by the groove and does not interact with the next blade. Experimental results show that the groove can suppress rotating cavitation, asymmetric cavitation and cavitation surge. However, weak instabilities with higher frequency could not be suppressed by the groove. From the analysis of pressure pattern similar to that for rotor-stator interaction, it was found that the higher frequency components are caused by the interaction of backflow vortices with the inducer blades.