Numerical investigation of a high-pressure submerged jet using a cavitation model considering effects of shear stress

Abstract

In the current research, a high-pressure submerged cavitation jet is investigated numerically. A cavitation model is created considering the effect of shear stress on cavitation formation. As such, this model is developed to predict the cavitation jet, and then the numerical results are validated by high-speed photography experiment. The turbulence viscosity of the renormalization group (RNG) k-ε turbulence model is used to provide a flow field for the cavitation model. Furthermore, this model is modified using a filter-based density correction model (FBDCM). The characteristics of the convergent-divergent cavitation nozzle are investigated in detail using the current CFD simulation method. It is found that shear stress plays an important role in the cavitation formation in the high-pressure submerged jet. In the result predicted by the Zwart-Gerber-Belamri (ZGB) cavitation model, where critical static pressure is used for the threshold of cavitation inception, the cavitation bubble only appears at the nozzle outlet and the length of the cavity is much shorter than the actual length captured by the high-speed photography experiment. When the shear stress term is added to the critical pressure, the length of the predicted cavity is close to the experimental result and three phenomena of the jet are captured, namely, growth, shedding, and collapsing, which agrees well with the experimental high-speed image. According to the orthogonal analysis based on the simulation result, when the jet power is unchanged, the main geometry parameter of the divergent-convergent nozzle that affects the jet performance is the divergent angle. For the nozzle with three different divergent angles of 40◦, 60◦, and 80◦, the one with the medium angle generates the most intensive cavitation cloud, while the small one shows the weakest cavitation performance. The obtained simulation result is confirmed by cavitation erosion tests of the Al1060 plate using these three nozzles.