Abstract
We predicted a cavitation erosion area in an open-type mixed-flow pump that was subject to tip vortex cavitation by using a numerical simulation code based on the `bubble flow model'. The erosion area on the impeller blade was predicted by estimating the cavitation intensity that was defined with the detailed bubble pressure and the bubble nuclei distribution. For comparison, we determined experimentally the erosion area in the same pump using a paint method. The predicted and the actual erosion areas located near the blade tip in the middle of the blade between the leading edge and the trailing edge. In the previous work, the code was used to predict the erosion area on the impeller blade of a closed-type centrifugal pump. The results from the previous work and this current work show that our code successfully predicts erosion areas in closed-type and open-type pumps.
