Award Date

12-15-2025

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Engineering (MSE)

Department

Mechanical Engineering

First Committee Member

Huang Chen

Second Committee Member

Melissa Morris

Third Committee Member

Yi-Tung Chen

Fourth Committee Member

Krystyna Stave

Number of Pages

192

Abstract

Cavitation is ubiquitous in liquid-handling turbomachines. Cavitation bubbles form when the local pressure drops below a fluid’s vapor pressure, and their subsequent collapse causes implosions that generate shockwaves and microjets. These effects lead to fluid instability and structural damage to the blades and casing in turbomachines. This thesis investigates this cavitation phenomenon in turbomachines using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The cavitation model built in ANSYS Fluent® is first validated in a venturi tube model and then applied to an inducer pump. The geometry of the pump is derived from the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) Low Pressure Oxidizer Pump (LPOP) Inducer, and is referred to as the UNLV Inducer. Performance characteristics, cavitation breakdown curves, and volume fraction contours are obtained, analyzed, and compared with the results of SSME LPOP in published literature. Various cavitation structures, such as tip vortex cavitation, attached cavitation on the suction side, and cloud cavitation, are captured in this CFD study. The successful simulation of cavitation in an inducer pump lays the foundation for future studies, including the mitigation of cavitation damage and the reduction of cavitation through geometry modifications. It also provides a foundation for the future work of applying cavitation to solve problems in oil and gas industries.

Keywords

Cavitation; Computational Fluid Dynamics; Fluid Engineering; Numerical Methods; Pumps; Turbomachinery

Disciplines

Engineering | Mechanical Engineering | Other Mechanical Engineering

File Format

PDF

File Size

7400 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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