Abstract
In this study, numerical analysis of cavitating three-blade cyclic flat-plate cascade is performed with paying attention to cavitation surge which is a type of cavitation instabilities. A numerical method employing “locally homogeneous model for compressible gas-liquid two-phase medium” is applied to solve the unsteady cavitating flowfield. From results of numerical analysis, few typical tendency of cavitation surge which is well known in experiments was reproduced numericaly, that frequency of cavitation surge decreases with lowering σ, and that cavitation surge is easy to occur at low flow rate condition. Additionaly, mechanism of pulsation phenomenon of cavitation surge in flat-plate cascade was clarified, that collapse pressure of cloud cavity in downstream of cascade propagates upstream on contact with re-entrant jet which is flowing backward inside a sheet cavity and causes oscillation in upstream pressure, also that negative angle of attack and choking of cascade throat are considered to cause of oscillation in flow rate. About dynamic transfer function of cavitation, certain degree of possibility is confirmed in quasi-steady mass flow gain factor Mquasi and cavitation compliance Kquasi for prediction of occurrence limit of cavitation instabilities. Additionally, for prediction of frequency of cavitation surge, it was confirmed that local cavitation compliance Klocal is more available than quasi-steady one.
