Numerical prediction of cavitation erosion in cavitating flow

Abstract

In this study bubble behavior in cavitating flow is analyzed and prediction of cavitation erosion in 2D cavitating flow around ClarkY 11.7 % hydrofoil at several cavitation is performed by impact pressure induced by bubble collapse. Our numerical method predicts that the impact energy is small if variation of cavitating flow is small and that the position of peak impact energy moves downstream with the decrease in cavitation number until the maximum sheet cavity length becomes larger than chord length. When the maximum sheet cavity length becomes larger than chord length, there are not obvious peak values and relatively weak erosion occurs. And it is found that high impact pressures are mainly induced by bubbles in a cloud and in the vicinity of sheet cavity termination during a cloud collapse. Therefore large impact energy occurs when the cloud cavity collapses near the hydrofoil, the sheet cavity termination is on the hydrofoil and the number of bubble is large in these cavities.