Numerical Simulation on the Ventilated Cavitating Flow with High Froude Number

Abstract

A numerical scheme based on the homogeneous multiphase model was proposed to model the ventilated cavitating flow by considering interaction between three phases including vapor, ventilated gas and liquid. Due to the difficulty of carrying out ventilated cavitation experiments in high-speed water tunnels, focus was put on predicting the developing process of the cavitating flow with high Froude number. The evolution processes for the ventilated cavity which transited between different gas-leakage mechanisms were successfully captured, obtaining the variation of the cavitation number along with the ventilation rate. Hydrodynamics analysis was carried out for the cavitating body with low and high Froude number respectively, thereby revealing the ventilation rate to optimize the vehicle performance. Based on the numerical results, a theoretical gas-leakage model which was adapted to a wide range of Froude number and various gas-leakage mechanisms was proposed. The model was validated through comparison against experimental data and numerical results. This research provides valuable guidance on the design for ventilated cavitating vehicles.