Numerical Simulations of Cavitation Flows around Clark-Y Hydrofoil

Abstract

Cavitation is a complex flow phenomenon including unsteady characteristics, turbulence, gas-liquid two-phase flow. This paper provides a numerical investigation on comparing the simulation performance of three different models in OpenFOAM-Merkle model, Kunz model and Schnerr-Sauer model, which is helpful for understanding the cavitation flow. Considering the influence of vapor-liquid mixing density on turbulent viscous coefficient, the modified SST k-ω model is adopted in this paper to increase the computing reliability. The InterPhaseChangeFoam solver is utilized to simulate the two-dimensional cavitation flow of the Clark-Y hydrofoil with three cavitation models. The hydrodynamic performance including lift coefficient, drag coefficient and cavitation flow shape of the hydrofoil is analyzed. Through the comparison of the numerical results and experimental data, it is found that the Schnerr-Sauer model can get the most accurate results among the three models...