Compressible Turbulent Flow Numerical Simulations of Tip Vortex Cavitation

Abstract

For an elliptic Arndt's hydrofoil numerical simulations of vortex cavitation are presented. An equilibrium cavitation model is employed. This single-fluid model assumes local thermodynamic and mechanical equilibrium in the mixture region of the flow, is employed. Furthermore, for characterizing the thermodynamic state of the system, precomputed multiphase thermodynamic tables containing data for the appropriate equations of state for each of the phases are used and a fast, accurate, and efficient look-up approach is employed for interpolating the data. The numerical simulations are carried out using the Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) equations for compressible flow. The URANS equations of motion are discretized using an finite volume method for unstructured grids. The numerical simulations clearly show the formation of the tip vortex cavitation in the flow about the elliptic hydrofoil.