Modelling of Cavitation Dynamics in Liquid Rocket Turbopumps to Address Cavitation-Induced Flow and Rotordynamics Instabilities

  • What it is

    Mobility experience with a research focus

  • Who it’s for

    PhD sandwich; Post Doc

Department

Department of Civil and Industrial Engineering - PhD programme in Industrial Engineering - Research Area: Aerospace Propulsion

Main research activities/topics/projects

Cavitation dynamics continue to pose a significant risk in the development and operation of launch vehicle (LV) propulsion systems. In addition to generating unsteady loads that can directly damage turbopump hardware, cavitation dynamics often couples with LV fluid feed systems, producing system wide instabilities (such as POGO) that can cause catastrophic failures. Despite its importance, the current understanding of cavitation dynamics is limited. There is a critical need for more in- depth characterization of the cavitation dynamics in turbopump inducers to avoid flow and rotordynamics instability. The research activities will start from the mathematical framework already developed at the University of Pisa and will be focused on the consolidation, development and validation of the reduced order model on already available experimental data at University of Pisa and in open literature.

Working language

Italian, English

Special entry requirements

Nice to have: lab experience, CFD experience, programming experience (Matlab, etc.)

Duration in months (min-max)

PhD sandwich: 6-24

Post Doc: 6-12

Contacts

Main scientific contact person

Angelo Pasini

+39-050-2217251

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Other scientific contact person

Elia Puccinelli

+39-050- 2217236

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