Numerical study of effect of the casing slot on the tip leakage vortex and vortex cavitation of a fuel pump

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to suppress the tip leakage vortex and cavitation of fuel pump by using the casing slot. The flow fields of the blades with different casing slots were studied by numerical simulation under the conditions of no cavitation and cavitation respectively. The results show that the loss with leakage vortex cavitation increases by 37 % compared with the condition without cavitation. Under cavitation conditions, the optimal scheme is c6 scheme, and the loss is reduced by 9.3 %. The tip leakage vortex and vortex cavitation can be effectively reduced by casing slot. Under the condition of no cavitation, the tip leakage flow loss can be effectively reduced by the casing slot in a wide range of axial positions. After the casing slot is applied, the shape of the blade tip leakage vortex is significantly changed, the size of the leakage vortex is significantly reduced, and the loss is reduced. Under cavitation conditions, the casing slot can also effectively improve the tip flow field and inhibit leakage vortex cavitation. In a wide range of axial positions, the casing slot can effectively inhibit leakage vortex cavitation.