Investigation of Cavitation Models for Steady and Unsteady Cavitating Flow Simulation

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the applicability of mass transfer cavitation models and determine appropriate numerical parameters for cavitating flow simulations. CFD simulations were performed for a NACA66 hydrofoil at cavitation numbers of 1.49 and 1.00, corresponding to steady sheet and unsteady sheet/cloud cavitating regimes using the Kubota and Merkle cavitation models. The Merkle model was implemented into CFX by User Fortran code. The Merkle cavitation model is found to give some improvements for cavitating flow simulation results for these cases. Turbulence modeling is also found to have an important contribution to the prediction quality of the simulations. The relationship between the turbulence viscosity modification, in order to take into account the local compressibility at the vapor/liquid interfaces, and the predicted numerical results is clarified. The limitations of current cavitating flow simulation techniques are discussed throughout the paper.