Data-driven turbulence model for unsteady cavitating flow

Abstract

Unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) equations have been widely used in engineering fields to investigate cavitating flow owing to their low computational cost and excellent robustness. However, it is challenging to accurately obtain the unsteady characteristics of flow owing to cavitation-induced phase transitions. In this study, we propose an implicit data-driven URANS (DD-URANS) framework to analyze the unsteady characteristics of cavitating flow. In the DD-URANS framework, a basic computational model is developed by introducing a cavitation-induced phase transition into the equations of Reynolds stress. To improve the computational accuracy and generalization performance of the basic model, the linear and nonlinear parts of the anisotropic Reynolds stress are predicted through implicit and explicit methods, respectively. A data fusion approach, allowing the input and output of characterized parameters at multiple time points, is presented to obtain the unsteady characteristics of the cavitating flow. The DD-URANS model is trained using the numerical results obtained via large-eddy simulation. The training data consist of two parts: (i) the results obtained at cavitation numbers of 2.0, 2.2, and 2.7 for a Venturi flow, and (ii) those obtained at cavitation numbers of 0.8 and 1.5 for a National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) 66 hydrofoil. The DD-URANS model is used to predict the cavitating flow at cavitation numbers of 2.5 for a Venturi flow and 0.8 for a Clark-Y hydrofoil. It is found that the DD-URANS model is superior to the baseline URANS model in predicting the instantaneous periodic shedding of a cavity and the mean flow fields.