Impeller Geometry Suitable for

Mini Turbo-Pump
Shuhong Liu
e-mail: oo9803jr@tobata.isc.kyutech.ac.jp
Michihiro Nishi
e-mail: nishi@mech.kyutech.ac.jp
Kouichi Yoshida
e-mail: yoshida@mech.kyutech.ac.jp
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Kyushu Institute of Technology,
Sensui-cho 1-1, Tobata,
Kitakyushu, 804-8550, Japan
The objective of the present study is to investigate the suitable impeller geometry for a
mini turbo-pump, which is defined as the size having impeller diameter between around 5
mm and 50 mm. This is treated because those pumps having the above size are regarded
as low efficiency machines if efficiency is less than 40 percent or 50 percent. Considering
that not only low Reynolds number and tip clearance but the design method are the major
causes for low performance, we carried out the performance test experimentally using
two semi-open centrifugal impellers: one is named as Impeller B of 36 mm diameter and
the other is Impeller C of 34 mm diameter. And the former is designed by a conventional
method and the latter is based on the proposed method. In the performance tests, rota-
tional speed was varied between 3000 rpm and 10,000 rpm and the axial clearance at the
blade tip of impeller exit was between 0.2 mm and 0.8 mm. It is clearly seen from the
results that Impeller C gives the better hydraulic performance. It is also clarified that the
effect of tip clearance on Impeller C performance is much smaller than that of the
Impeller B. Further, we conducted numerical calculation of impeller performance, where
the commercial CFD code named TASCflow was used with k-␻ turbulence model. From
the results, the turbulent flow analysis is reasonably usable to study the flow in the above
mini impellers. 关DOI: 10.1115/1.1385385兴

Keywords: Mini, Turbo-pump, Impeller, Geometry, Performance, Tip Clearance,

Numerical Analysis

Introduction
In recent years, due to the global environmental problems, it is
essential to promote effective and efficient usage of energy and to
develop mini technologies in many areas. For the turbo-pump,
being the key machine for liquid transportation, its further devel-
opment is always desirable. Impellers of around 50 mm diameter
have still been adopted for a blood pump, a turbo-pump for a heat
control system in a space laboratory, though they are expected to
be as small as possible.
Though a great many research works have been done for the
larger size pump, whose suction-pipe diameter is larger than 32
mm, rather a few studies have treated a mini turbo-pump of im-
peller diameter between 10 mm and 50 mm. It may be because
many textbooks and handbooks usually show the classical results,
which demonstrate the pump efficiency being decreased with de-
crease of the discharge 关1兴. The major causes are manufacturing
accuracy, surface roughness, clearance effect, low specific speed,
and low Reynolds number. However, some of these problems will
be solved now by the remarkable development of various tech-
nologies. The production technology can reduce the effect of the
first two or three at low cost. As an electric motor with inverter
has become very popular in recent years, it will be possible to
introduce a variable speed turbo-pump without an additional cost.
Thus, a pump having not low but desirable specific speed will be
selectable if higher rotational speed of a motor than the rated
speed is utilized. Due to the higher rotational speed, we can set
Reynolds number larger than 105 , which is regarded as the limit
to avoid the predominant deterioration of efficiency 关2兴.
The major remaining problem must be the effect of axial tip
clearance on the hydraulic performance, because a centrifugal
semi-open impeller will be the standard type since higher head
and smaller discharge will generally be expected for a mini turbo-
pump. Engeda and Rautenburg did a systematic study on semi-
open impellers and showed that the tip clearance had an obvious
Contributed by the Fluids Engineering Division for publication in the JOURNAL
OF FLUIDS ENGINEERING. Manuscript received by the Fluids Engineering Division
February 26, 2001; revised manuscript received April 28, 2001. Associate Editor:
Y. Tsujimoto.
effect on pump performance 关3兴. Senoo and Ishida did fundamen-
tal studies on the pressure losses due to the tip clearance using
centrifugal blowers, and demonstrated the prediction method for
them 关4–6兴. It should be noted that all these studies were carried
out for the larger size impeller. And it is still unclear how much
the tip clearance affects the mini-impeller performance, although
they are useful contributions.
Besides those causes mentioned above, a hydraulic design
method for mini turbo-pumps should be the most important key.
Though it is said that the method has already been established 关1兴,
it is not yet clear that the conventional design method is also
applicable to the mini turbo-pumps. From consideration of the
mini turbo-pump application, primary attention can be paid to
higher load with smaller impeller-size and better hydraulic perfor-
mance near the design point rather than higher cavitation perfor-
mance and wider operating range. Thus, the following design con-
cepts may be suitable for a mini turbo-pump having a centrifugal
semi-open impeller: 共1兲 larger blade angle at outlet 共measured
from tangential direction兲, 共2兲 larger number of blades and 共3兲
smaller outlet/inlet area-ratio. The objective of the present study is
to investigate the impeller geometry suitable for the mini turbo-
pump experimentally and numerically. We used two kinds of cen-
trifugal semi-open impellers, one being designed by a conven-
tional method and the other based on the concepts described
above. As the first step, we focus on an impeller having specific
speed 共Type number兲 around 0.8 and specific diameter around 4.
Test Apparatus and Method
Test Impellers. Figure 1 shows the photos of test centrifugal
impellers specified as Impeller B of 36 mm diameter and Impeller
C of 34 mm diameter. The meridional shape is shown in Fig. 2,
and major specifications are summarized in Table 1. It is noted
that Impeller B having five two-dimensional blades is designed by
the conventional method 关1兴 and Impeller C is based on the pro-
posed concepts. Typical geometrical features of the latter are out-
let blade angle of 60 deg, blade number of 12, and outlet/inlet area
ratio of 0.9.

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 Fig. 1 Test impellers

Fig. 3 Cross-sectional view

torque detector, the pump discharge was by a magnetic flowmeter

and head rise between pump inlet and outlet was by U tube ma-
nometer.
Nondimensional Parameters. Following the standard test
code 关7兴, the pump performance is studied and the characteristics
are represented by the nondimensional parameters shown below:
Fig. 2 Meridional shape of impeller
a. Discharge Coefficient: ␾.

Table 1 Impeller specifications ␾ ⫽ 共 Q d /60000兲 / 共 U 2 A 2 兲 (1)

where Q d : discharge 共L/min兲, U 2 : peripheral speed at impeller
outlet ⫽ ␲ D 2 n/60 共m/s兲, A 2 : cross-sectional area at impeller outlet
⫽ ␲ D 2 b 2 (m2 ) .
b. Head Coefficient: ␺.
␺ ⫽H/ 共 U 22 /2g 兲 (2)
where H: pump total head 共m兲, g: gravitational acceleration
(m/s2 ).
c. Power Coefficient: ␶ p , ␶ in , ␶ w .
␶ p ⫽ P p / 共 ␳ A 2 U 32 /2兲 (3)
␶ w ⫽ P w / 共 ␳ A 2 U 32 /2兲 (4)
Test Apparatus. The test impellers in turn are installed in the
casing of a mini turbo-pump, a cross-sectional view of which is
shown in Fig. 3. Considering the reaction factor of Impeller C, a
vaneless diffuser portion is located between the impeller and the
spiral casing. The pump inlet 共suction pipe兲 diameter is 20 mm
and the exit 共delivery pipe兲 is 15 mm. Pressure taps are provided
on the wall of the front cover to measure static pressures near the
diffuser exit for Impeller C and near the diffuser inlet and exit for
Impeller B. Axial clearance between the blade tip and the shroud
casing is adjusted by inserting a lining sheet between the front
cover and the casing to study the tip clearance effect. Thus, the
diffuser width also varied with the thickness of the sheet. It is
noted that the same diffuser and casing were used in this study, as
our attention was primarily paid to the hydraulic performance of
the impeller. Figure 4 schematically shows the test rig used for the
measurement of pump performance. The test pump is driven by a
three-phase induction motor with an inverter, which is adjustable
from 1200 rpm–12,000 rpm. Input power was measured by a Fig. 4 Test rig

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 where ␳: water density (kg/m3 ), P p : shaft power 共W兲, P w : water
power ⫽ ␳ g(Q d /60,000) H 共W兲.
Since the mechanical power losses due to the bearings and me-
chanical seal may be relatively large in the case of a mini pump,
the following input power coefficient ␶ in is introduced.
␶ in ⫽ P in / 共 ␳ A 2 U 32 /2兲
where P in : shaft power excluding bearings and mechanical seal
losses 共W兲. To obtain P in experimentally, we carried out the
shaft-torque measurement once the casing was emptied, assuming
that the identical losses occurred in those cases with and without
water as the working fluid.
d. Pump efficiency: ␩ p , ␩ in . Pump total efficiency is given
by
␩ p ⫽ ␩ v ␩ h ␩ m ⫽ ␩ v ␩ h ␩ md ␩ me ⫽ P w / P p
where ␩ v : volumetric efficiency, ␩ h : hydraulic efficiency, ␩ m :
mechanical efficiency, ␩ me : external mechanical efficiency, ␩ md :
internal mechanical efficiency related to the loss due to the disk
and cylindrical friction on outer surfaces of impeller.
Considering the feature of the mini pump where mechanical
loss is one of major losses, the pump internal efficiency ␩ in is
used:
␩ in ⫽ ␩ v ␩ h ␩ md ⫽ ␶ w / ␶ in ⫽ P w / P in
e. Loss Coefficient: ␨. The loss coefficient is defined by
␵⫽H L / 共 U 22 /2g 兲
where H L : head loss 共m兲.
f. Dimensionless Tip Clearance: ␭ 2 . The following dimen-
sionless parameter is used as the measure to evaluate the effects of
tip clearance.
␭ 2 ⫽c 2 /b 2
where, c 2 is the axial clearance between blade tip and the casing
wall at the impeller outlet location. As it is assumed that the
thickness of the lining sheet corresponds to the increment of tip
clearance, no measurement was made under the operating condi-
tion in the present study.
g. Reynolds Number: Re. Concerning Reynolds number, the
following definition is adopted:
Re⫽U 2 共 D 2 /2兲 / ␯
where, ␯ is the kinematic viscosity (m /s兲. 2
Test Procedure. Table 2 shows the test conditions to study
the effects of tip clearance and Reynolds number on the hydraulic
performances of test pumps. The test range of Reynolds number
and dimensionless tip clearance are summarized in Table 3 and
Table 4, respectively. The performance test is made under con-
stant rotational speed at each test condition.
Table 2 Test conditions
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Table 3 Reynolds number Re„Ã10À5…
(5)
Table 4 Tip clearance ratio ␭ 2
(6)
Numerical Calculation
In order to make clear the applicability of CFD to the perfor-
mance prediction of mini impellers, the numerical analysis of
three-dimensional turbulent flow was made based on RANS equa-
tions and k-␻ turbulence model. The commercial CFD code of
TASCflow 关8兴 was used for this purpose, and the flow in Impeller
C was calculated to compare with the experimental results. As the
effect of axial tip clearance on the performance of a semi-open
(7)
impeller was a major concern, one impeller channel was treated
assuming that the incoming flow was axisymmetric. Figure 5
shows the computational domain, which is generated by CFX-
(8) TurboGrid. It consists of two parts: blade and tip clearance. The
total grid number is 96,200, in which for the blade is 65⫻40
⫻29, and for tip clearance is 65⫻40⫻8. As for the boundary
conditions, the absolute axial velocity was given by U a ⫽Q d /A 1
at the inlet section, while the average static pressure was given as
0 at the outlet section of the domain. Shroud casing 共front cover兲
is set as absolute stationary, and the surfaces of blade and hub are
(9) the relative stationary.
Convergence for the simulation varied, but a typical range is
150-200 iterations to research maximum normalized residuals less
than the value of 1.0E-4. This is a finer convergence tolerance
than is really required, since the solution is converged beyond the
point where local or global flow changes are significant. Approxi-
mately 3-4 hours on a Dell computer workstation 420866M were
required for each solution.
(10)
Fig. 5 Computational domain „displayed are the following
grids: inflow and outflow planes, casing and hub surfaces, and
pressure surface of blade…
Transactions of the ASME
 Results and Discussions
Pump Performances. Performance curves for pumps having
Impeller B and C tested under the rotational speed of 6000 rpm
and axial tip clearance of 0.2 mm are shown in Fig. 6共a兲 and 共b兲,
where pump head H and input power P in are plotted against the
discharge Q d . Theoretical head H th is derived from measured
input power and estimated disk-friction-loss 关7兴. A line of H th-inf
shows the characteristic of theoretical head for the infinite number
of impeller blades. Using wall pressures measured at four circum-
ferential positions near the diffuser inlet and exit for Impeller B
and those measured at four positions near the diffuser exit for
Impeller C, we estimated total head rises at the impeller outlet and
diffuser outlet, H im p and H di f respectively. Those results are also
shown in the figure to see the performance of each component,
impeller, vaneless diffuser and spiral casing. It is noted that H im p
in Fig. 6共b兲 corresponds to the calculated results, as we applied
the numerical analysis to Impeller C at three operating points.
Thus, the calculated input power P in-cal curve and theoretical head
H th are shown for comparison in Fig. 6共b兲.
Figure 7 shows the comparison of pump characteristics ␺, ␶,
and ␩ versus ␾, which were obtained from those results in Fig. 6.
Fig. 7 Comparison of pump characteristics „Imp. B and C: n
Ä6000 rpm, c2 Ä0.2 mm… „Uncertainty of ␾ ÄÁ0.52 percent, of
␺ ÄÁ0. percent, and of ␶ in ÄÁ0.15 percent, ␩ ÄÁ1.5 percent…

Comparison of typical non-dimensional parameters at the best ef-

ficiency point is summarized in Table 5. Further, to see the effect
of impeller size, the results demonstrated by Engeda-Rautenberg
关3兴 using the following similar semi-open impeller are reproduced
in the figure specified as L pump:
Specific speed 共or Type number兲: n s ⫽0.83
Impeller diameter: D 2 ⫽219 mm
Outlet angle of blade: ␤ 2 ⫽26 deg
Number of blade: Z⫽6
Tip clearance: ␭ 2 ⫽0.0523
From the above results, the following features are seen:
1 57 percent is the best pump internal efficiency for the pump
having Impeller B, which is designed by the conventional method.
According to the chart shown in textbooks, this value for a mini
turbo-pump is regarded as not very low.
2 Impeller B provides the stable head-discharge curve ob-
served in the whole operating range.
3 Better performances except the unstable characteristics in the
lower flow range are provided by the pump having Impeller C,
which is based on the proposed concepts.

Table 5 Comparison of Impeller B and C

Fig. 6 Performance of impeller „nÄ6000 rpm, c2 Ä0.2 mm… „Un-

certainty of Q d ÄÁ0.5 percent, of HÄÁ0.3 percent, and of P in
Ä0.11 percent…

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 Fig. 8 Effect of tip clearance „n Ä6000 rpm… „Uncertainty of ␾ ÄÁ0.52 percent, of ␺ ÄÁ0.3 percent, and of ␶ in Ä
Á0.15 percent, ␩ ÄÁ1.5 percent…

4 The best pump internal efficiency for Impeller C reaches 63 impeller is treated in the calculation. Concerning the input power,
percent, and the efficiency more than 60 percent is secured in the the numerical results also show the clearance effect being negli-
operating range between 0.13 and 0.26 of ␾. gibly small.
5 The discharge and pump head are remarkably increased in
the case of Impeller C, diameter of which is a little bit smaller ⌬H * ⫽ 共 H 0 ⫺H ␾ 兲 /H 0 (11)
than that of Impeller B. Using the dimensionless head-drop ⌬H * given above, the
6 The relatively large difference between pump internal effi- clearance effect is examined as shown in Fig. 9, where, H ␾ as a
ciency and total efficiency in both pumps indicates that the me- function of ␭ 2 denotes the pump head at a certain value of dis-
chanical power losses caused by bearings and seals cannot be charge ␾ near the best efficiency point. ␾ ⫽0.09 and 0.2 were
disregarded for mini-size turbo-pump treated here. adopted for Impeller B and C in this study. H 0 is the pump head
7 The maximum efficiencies of Impeller B and C are smaller at ␾ for zero tip clearance. H 0 was obtained from the extrapola-
than that of L pump. The scale effect will be one of the causes.
8 Good agreement between measured and calculated input
power 共and theoretical head兲 of Impeller C case indicates that the
turbulent flow analysis based on the RANS equations with k-␻
turbulence model will be reasonably applicable to predict the hy-
draulic performance of turbo-pump even with mini-size.
Effect of Tip Clearance. As stated in the previous section,
the tip clearance will be one of the major causes of deterioration
of the performance of a turbo-pump having a semi-open impeller.
Thus, the performance tests were repeated changing the axial tip
clearance for Impeller B and C. Using dimensionless clearance ␭ 2
as a parameter, characteristic curves are shown in Fig. 8.
From Fig. 8共a兲 for Impeller B, it is seen that all coefficients,
pump-head, power and efficiency are decreased with increasing
␭ 2 . However, relatively smaller effects of ␭ 2 on the performances
are observed in Fig. 8共b兲 for Impeller C. Especially, dependence
on ␭ 2 is hardly seen among the results of the input power. Here,
the numerical analysis was also made to study the effect of axial
tip clearance on the performances of Impeller C at three operating
points. Their results plotted in Fig. 8共b兲 show reasonable predic-
tion. The difference of head between the experiment and the cal-
culation largely corresponds to the losses that occurred in the
vaneless diffuser and the spiral casing, for the head rise in the Fig. 9 ⌬ H * VS. ␭ 2

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 acteristic of pump efficiency ␩ p is observed with decrease of Rey-
nolds number. This is understandable because the hydraulic power
loss is a function of n 3 , besides the external mechanical power
loss is nearly proportional to n. Regarding the internal efficiency
which is related to various hydraulic losses in the pump, the effect
of Reynolds number looks considerably small, even though there
is such a weak trend that the efficiency is decreased with decrease
of Reynolds number. It is suspected that major losses in both
pumps are caused by flow mixing which is not related to the effect
of Reynolds number.
Further Consideration. It is made clear from the present ex-
periment that the effect of tip clearance on the hydraulic perfor-
mance of Impeller C is remarkably smaller than that of Impeller
B. The experimental results in Fig. 8 show that the typical differ-
ence is observed in the characteristics of input power. Though it is
decreased with increasing the tip clearance in the case of Impeller
Fig. 10 ⌬ H* Õ⌬␭ 2 VS. ␤ 2 B, which is regarded as usual, it is nearly constant for Impeller C.

tion of H ␾ curve. Further, the numerical result for Impeller C and

the test result for larger size pump 关3,4,9,10兴 are included in the
figure for comparison. The following features are seen in the fig-
ure:
1 Every result demonstrates that the larger the tip clearance is,
the larger the head-drop is.
2 Good agreement between experiment and calculation for Im-
peller C is recognized.
3 Head-drop of Impeller C is much smaller than that of Impel-
ler B and those of other larger size pumps.
4 Thus, the clearance effect does not primarily depend on the
impeller size.
From Fig. 9, the correlation between head-drop gradient
⌬H * /⌬␭ 2 and ␤ 2 is made and plotted in Fig. 10. It is seen that
the gradient is influenced by ␤ 2 , i.e., the larger the blade angle
will be, the smaller the head-drop will be, which was pointed out
by Senoo and Ishida 关4–6兴.
Effect of Reynolds Number. In order to examine the effect
of Reynolds number on pump performance, both impellers were
tested under different rotational speeds from 3000 rpm–10,000
rpm, following the plan shown in Table 3.
From the macroscopic point of view, similitude is recognized in
various characteristic curves excluding the ␩ p -␾ curve. As a typi-
cal example, the relationship between efficiency and Reynolds
number is shown in Fig. 11, where internal pump efficiency ␩ in
and pump efficiency ␩ p are plotted against Re. The drop-off char-

Fig. 11 ␩ in , ␩ p VS. Re Fig. 12 Pressure distribution along the blade of Impeller C

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 To find the reason, we calculated the pressure distributions around Nomenclature
the blade of Impeller C from the numerical results. The distribu-
tions near the hub and the blade tip are shown in Fig. 12共a兲 and A ⫽ area (m2 )
共b兲, respectively. It is seen that the difference of pressures on b ⫽ width 共mm兲
pressure surface and suction surface greatly changes near the up- c ⫽ axial clearance 共mm兲
stream side of blade depending on the tip clearance, but it hardly D ⫽ diameter 共mm兲
changes near the downstream side. Since the latter largely decides H ⫽ pump total head 共m兲
the magnitude of impeller torque, it is explained that Impeller C n ⫽ rotational speed 共rpm兲
based on the proposed concepts has the nature to provide almost P ⫽ power 共W兲
the same input power under various tip clearance conditions. Qd ⫽ discharge 共L/min兲
Re ⫽ Reynolds number
U ⫽ peripheral speed 共m/s兲
Conclusions W ⫽ relative velocity 共m/s兲
The following conclusions can be drawn from the present ex- Z ⫽ blade number
perimental and numerical study on suitable impeller-geometry of ␤ ⫽ blade angle 共deg兲
mini turbo-pump, which provides good hydraulic performance: ⌬H * ⫽ dimensionless head-drop, see Eq. 共11兲
␨ ⫽ loss coefficient, see Eq. 共8兲
1 The impeller geometry, which is designed based on the fol- ␩ ⫽ efficiency, see Eq. 共6兲
lowing design concepts, provides better hydraulic perfor- ␭ ⫽ clearance ratio, see Eq. 共9兲
mance than that designed by the conventional method. ␶ ⫽ power coefficient, see Eq. 共3兲
␾ ⫽ flow coefficient, see Eq. 共1兲
共1兲 Larger outlet blade angle is selected 共ex.: ␤ 2 ⫽60 deg for ␺ ⫽ head coefficient, see Eq. 共2兲
Impeller C兲.
共2兲 The number of blade greater than several blades is se- Subscripts
lected 共ex.: Z⫽12 for Impeller C兲. 1 ⫽ inlet
共3兲 Outlet/inlet area ratio A 2 /A 1 less than 1.0 is selectable if 2 ⫽ outlet
the diffusion factor W 2 /W 1 takes a reasonable value 共ex.: cal ⫽ calculation
A 2 /A 1 ⫽0.9 for Impeller C兲. cas ⫽ casing
dif ⫽ diffuser
2 If we use the turbo-pump having the proposed impeller of 34 h ⫽ hub, hydaulic
mm diameter, the following performance is achievable under in ⫽ internal
the rotational speed 10,000 rpm: pump head ⫽15.8 m, dis- imp ⫽ impeller
charge ⫽66.8 L/min, and pump internal efficiency ⫽63 per- L ⫽ loss
cent. p ⫽ power
3 The effect of tip clearance will be attenuated by the impeller t ⫽ tip
geometry such as larger outlet blade angle. Its effect on the th ⫽ theoretical
proposed impeller is remarkably smaller than that of the con- th-inf ⫽ theoretical 共perfectly guided兲
ventional impeller. w ⫽ water
4 The law of similitude was observed for the pump character-
istics in the range of Reynolds number larger than 1.0
⫻105 . References
5 The numerical three-dimensional flow analysis based on 关1兴 Stepanoff, A. J., 1957, Centrifugal and Axial Flow Pumps, 2ed., Wiley, NY.
关2兴 Tanaka, K., and Ohashi, H., 1984, ‘‘Performance of Centrifugal Pumps at Low
RANS equations with k-␻ turbulence model may be reason- Reynolds Number,’’ Trans. Jpn. Soc. Mech. Eng., Ser. B, 50, No. 449, pp.
ably applicable to study the hydraulic performance of mini 279–285 共in Japanese兲.
impellers. 关3兴 Engeda, A., and Rautenberg, M., 1988, ‘‘Partial Flow Performance Compari-
sons of Semi-open and Closed Centrifugal Impellers,’’ ImechE, C334/88.
关4兴 Ishida, M., and Senoo, Y., 1981, ‘‘On the Pressure Losses Due to the Tip
Clearance of Centrifugal Blowers,’’ ASME J. Eng. Gas Turbines Power, 103,
Acknowledgments pp. 271–278.
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support from the 关5兴 Senoo, Y., and Ishida, M.,1986, ‘‘Pressure Loss Due to the Tip Clearance of
Impeller Blades in Centrifugal and Axial Blowers,’’ ASME J. Eng. Gas Tur-
Harada Memorial Scholarship foundation at the initiation of this bines Power, 108, pp. 32–35.
study and that from the Ministry of Education, Science and Cul- 关6兴 Senoo, Y., and Ishida, M., 1987, ‘‘Deterioration of Compressor Performance
ture under the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research 共c兲 Due to Tip Clearance of Centrifugal Impellers,’’ ASME J. Turbomach., 109,
共No.11650179兲 as a nice driving force. They are grateful to Dr. Y. pp. 55–61.
关7兴 JSME S008, 1989, Performance Conversion Method for Hydraulic Turbines
Senoo, Professor Emeritus of Kyushu University, for his helpful and Pumps.
comments during the preparation of this paper. The authors would 关8兴 CFX-TASCflow, Version 2.10, Primer Manual, AEA Technology Engineering
also like to thank Prof. Tsukamoto, Prof. Kanemoto and the mem- Ltd.
bers of KIT Fluid Engineering Group for their assistance through- 关9兴 Wood, G. M., Welna, H., and Lamers, R. P., 1965, ‘‘Tip-clearance Effect in
Centrifugal Pumps,’’ Trans. ASME, 85, pp. 932–940.
out the course of the present investigation, which has been con- 关10兴 Murakami, M., and Minemura, Y., 1976, ‘‘Effects of Side Clearance of Semi-
ducted as one of projects in the KIT Satellite Venture Business open Impeller Pumps under Air Admitting Conditions,’’ Trans. Jpn. Soc.
Laboratory. Mechm. Eng. 42, No. 354, pp. 489–496 共in Japanese兲.

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