Partial Cavitating Flow Research Articles

A joint experimental and numerical study of mechanisms associated to instability of partial cavitation on two-dimensional hydrofoil

The present work was carried out in the scope of a numerical-experimental collaborative research program, whose main objective is to understand the mechanisms of instabilities in partial cavitating flow. Experiments were conducted in the configuration of a rectangular foil located in a cavitation tunnel. Partial cavitation was investigated by multipoint wall-pressure measurements together with lift and drag measurements and numerical videos. The computations were conducted on two-dimensional hydrofoil section and are based on a single fluid model of cavitation: the liquid/vapor mixture is considered as a homogeneous fluid whose composition is regulated by a barotropic state law. The algorithm of resolution is derived from the SIMPLE approach, modified to take into account the high compressibility of the medium. Several physical features were pointed out by this joint approach. Particularly two distinct cavity self-oscillation dynamics characterized by two different frequencies (dynamics 1 and dynamics 2) were obtained experimentally and numerically at the angles of incidence of 6° and 8°. In both cases, the reentrant jet was found to be mainly responsible for the cavity breakdown. Dynamics 2 corresponds to the “classical” cavity breakdown and resulting cloud cavitation. A more complex flow pattern was evidenced for dynamics 1. In this case the growth/breakdown cycle of the cavity was observed at a lower Strouhal number (∼0.07∕0.09) than dynamics 2 (∼0.3). Moreover, the mechanism is composed of two successive steps: (i) an interaction between the reentrant jet and the cavity interface in the closure region leading to the periodic shedding of secondary cavitation clouds before the main cloud detachment occurs, and (ii) a shock wave induced by the collapse of the main cloud, which influences the growth of the residual cavity.

Analysis of Partial Cavitation on Cascade Blades Considering Thermodynamic Effect (1st Report, Steady Analysis Using Singularity Method)

It is well known that the suction performance of turbopumps in cryogenic fluids is much better than that in cold water because of thermodynamic effect of cavitation. In the present study, an analytical method to simulate partial cavitating flow with the thermodynamic effect in a cascade is proposed : heat transfer between the cavity and the ambient fluid is modeled by one-dimensional unsteady heat conduction model under the slender body approximation and is coupled with flow analysis using a singularity method. In this report, the steady analysis is performed and the results are compared with those of experiments to validate the model of the present analysis. This analysis can be easily extended into unsteady stability analysis for cavitation instabilities such as rotating cavitation and cavitation surge.