Incompressible viscous flow computations for the pump components and the artificial heart

A finite-difference, three-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes formulation to calculate the flow through turbopump components is utilized. The solution method is based on the pseudocompressibility approach and uses an implicit-upwind differencing scheme together with the Gauss-Seidel line relaxation method. Both steady and unsteady flow calculations can be performed using the current algorithm. In this work, the equations are solved in steadily rotating reference frames by using the steady-state formulation in order to simulate the flow through a turbopump inducer. Eddy viscosity is computed by using an algebraic mixing-length turbulence model. Numerical results are compared with experimental measurements and a good agreement is found between the two. Included in the appendix is a paper on incompressible viscous flow through artificial heart devices with moving boundaries. Time-accurate calculations, such as impeller and diffusor interaction, will be reported in future work.