Modeling cavitation flow of cryogenic fluids with thermodynamic phase-change theory

Abstract

Cavitation is the formation of vapor bubbles within a liquid where the flow dynamics causes the local static pressure to drop below the vapor pressure. The so-called full cavitation model (FCM) developed by Singhal has been widely used in numerical modeling of the cavitation flow for thermosensible and non-thermosensible fluids. Within the FCM, the bubble size is taken to be equivalent to the maximum possible value to forego the calculation of bubble number density. We developed a new cavitation model by re-calculating the bubble radius in FCM to account for the effects of local pressure. The new model was obtained by combining the thermodynamic phase-change theory and the Young-Laplace equation with the assumption of thermodynamic equilibrium during the cavitation process. The cavitation calculations were performed based on the mathematical framework of the homogeneous equilibrium flow model and the transport-equation-based model for vapor phase mass fraction. The model was validated by modeling the cavitating flow of liquid nitrogen and liquid hydrogen through NASA hydrofoil and Ogive with consideration of the phase-change thermal effects. The temperature and pressure distributions with the new model are found to agree well with data from existing experimental studies, as well as the simulations with the FCM. © 2013 The Author(s).