Development of a Retracting Vane/Centrifugal Main Fuel Pump for Gas Turbine Engines

Fuel pumps and metering systems are becoming more complex and expensive to meet the high performance requirements of advanced gas turbine engines. A simple, inlet throttled, centrifugal pump integrated with a retracting vane starting element provides the potential for a reliable, high performance design capable of reducing the cost, weight, and temperature rise of the fuel system. This paper presents the results of recent efforts to develop the retracting vane element and to integrate it with a vapor core centrifugal pump in order to meet the fuel performance and functional requirements of an advanced gas turbine main fuel pump.