Observation of Superposition of Cavitation Instability in Liquid Rocket Inducer by Multi-point Pressure Measurement

Abstract The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the growth and contraction processes of each blade cavity and cavitation instability, and to conduct multi-point pressure measurement tests. The experiments will be conducted using cavitation water flow tunnels installed at the Kakuda Space Center of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). In the multi-point pressure measurement experiment, a number of pressure sensors are installed in the inducer casing, and the cavity area can be estimated and the cavity length can be obtained by creating a pressure distribution between the blades during the depressurization experiments. This method makes it possible to continuously determine cavity length variation during inducer experiments and to investigate the cavity growth process. In addition, cavity length variation can be obtained with higher time resolution than in visualization experiment, allowing more detailed investigation of the unsteady cavity behaviour during cavitation instability. And two types of superposition cavitation instability were found in this study: one is Super-S R.C. and C.S., the other is Sync R.C. and C.S..