Numerical Study of Sheet Cavitation Break-off Phenomenon on a Cascade Hydrofoil

Abstract

2-D unsteady cavity flows through hydrofoils in cascade which is the most fundamental element of turbomachinery are numerically calculated. In particular, attention was paid to instability phenomena of the sheet cavity in transient cavitation condition and the mechanism of break-off phenomenon was examined. A TVD MacCormack's scheme employing a locally homogeneous model of compressible gas-liquid two-phase media was applied to analyze above cavity flows. The present method permits us to treat the whole cavitating/noncavitating unsteady flow field. By analyzing numerical results in detail, it became clear that there are at least two mechanisms in the break-off phenomena of sheet cavity; one is that re-entrant jets play a dominant role in such a break-off phenomenon, and the other is that pressure waves propagating inside the cavity bring about an another type of break-off phenomenon accompanied with cavity surface waves.