Simulation of cavitation water flows

Abstract

The air-water mixture from an artificially aerated spillway flowing down to a canyon may cause serious erosion and damage to both the spillway surface and the environment. The location of an aerator, its geometry, and the aeration flow rate are important factors in the design of an environmentally friendly high-energy spillway. In this work, an analysis of the problem based on physical and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling is presented. The numerical modeling used was a large eddy simulation technique (LES) combined with a discrete element method. Three-dimensional simulations of a spillway were performed on a graphics processing unit (GPU). The result of this analysis in the form of design suggestions may help diminishing the hazards associated with cavitation.