This paper mainly summarizes the recent progresses for the cavitation study in the hydraulic machinery including turbo-pumps, hydro turbines, etc.. Especially, the newly developed numerical methods for simulating cavitating turbulent flows and the achievements with regard to the complicated flow features revealed by using advanced optical techniques as well as cavitation simulation are introduced so as to make a better understanding of the cavitating flow mechanism for hydraulic machinery. Since cavitation instabilities are also vital issue and rather harmful for the operation safety of hydro machines, we present the 1-D analysis method, which is identified to be very useful for engineering applications regarding the cavitating flows in inducers, turbine draft tubes, etc. Though both cavitation and hydraulic machinery are extensively discussed in literatures, one should be aware that a few problems still remains and are open for solution, such as the comprehensive understanding of cavitating turbulent flows especially inside hydro turbines, the unneglectable discrepancies between the numerical and experimental data, etc.. To further promote the study of cavitation in hydraulic machinery, some advanced topics such as a Density-Based solver suitable for highly compressible cavitating turbulent flows, a virtual cavitation tunnel, etc. are addressed for the future works.

A review of cavitation in hydraulic machinery

Tip clearance on pressure fluctuation intensity and vortex characteristic of a mixed flow pump as turbine at pump mode

Large Eddy Simulation of the Tip-leakage Cavitating flow with an insight on how cavitation influences vorticity and turbulence

Large eddy simulation and Euler–Lagrangian coupling investigation of the transient cavitating turbulent flow around a twisted hydrofoil

Bubbles have very important applications in many fields such as shipbuilding engineering, ocean engineering, mechanical engineering, environmental engineering, chemical engineering, medical science and so on. In this paper, the research status and the development of the bubble dynamics in terms of theory, numerical simulation and experimental technique are reviewed, which cover the underwater explosion bubble, airgun bubble, spark bubble, laser bubble, rising bubble, propeller cavitation bubble, water entry/exit cavitation bubble and bubble dynamics in other fields. Former researchers have done a lot of researches on bubble dynamics and gained fruitful achievements. However, due to the complexity of the bubble motion, many tough mechanical problems remain to be solved. Based on the research progress of bubble dynamics, this paper gives the future research direction of bubble dynamics, aiming to provide references for researches related to bubble dynamics.

Bubble dynamics and its applications

In this paper, the turbulent attached cavitating flow around a Clark-Y hydrofoil is investigated by the large eddy simulation (LES) method coupled with a homogeneous cavitation model. The predicted lift coefficient and the cavity volume show a distinctly quasi-periodic process with cavitation shedding and the results agree fairly well with the available experimental data. The present simulation accurately captures the main features of the unsteady cavitation transient behavior including the attached cavity growth, the sheet/cloud cavitation transition and the cloud cavitation collapse. The vortex shedding structure from a hydrofoil cavitating wake is identified by the criterion, which implies that the large scale structures might slide and roll down along the suction side of the hydrofoil while being further developed at the downstream. Further analysis demonstrates that the turbulence level of the flow is clearly related to the cavitation and the turbulence velocity fluctuation is much influenced by the cavity shedding.

Large eddy simulation of turbulent attached cavitating flow with special emphasis on large scale structures of the hydrofoil wake and turbulence-cavitation interactions

In order to maintain a uniform distribution of pareto-front solutions, a modified NSGA-II algorithm coupled with a dynamic crowding distance (DCD) method is proposed for the multi-objective optimization of a mixed-flow pump impeller. With the pump meridional section fixed, ten variables along the shroud and hub are selected to control the blade load by using a three-dimensional inverse design method. Hydraulic efficiency, along with impeller head, is applied as an optimization objective; and a radial basis neural network (RBNN) is adopted to approximate the objective function with 82 training samples. Local sensitivity analysis shows that decision variables have different impacts on the optimization objectives. Instead of randomly selecting one solution to implement, a technique for ordering preferences by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) is introduced to select the best compromise solution (BCS) from pareto-front sets. The proposed method is applied to optimize the baseline model, i.e. a mixed- flow waterjet pump whose specific speed is 508 min-1·m3s-1·m. The performance of the waterjet pump was experimentally tested. Compared with the baseline model, the optimized impeller has a better hydraulic efficiency of 92% as well as a higher impeller head at the design operation point. Furthermore, the off-design performance is improved with a wider high- efficiency operation range. After optimization, velocity gradients on the suction surface are smoother and flow separations are eliminated at the blade inlet part. Thus, the authors believe the proposed method is helpful for optimizing the mixed-flow pumps.

Multi-objective optimization of a mixed-flow pump impeller using modified NSGA-II algorithm

Turbulent cavitating flows in a mixed-flow waterjet pump were numerically investigated using the k-ω SST turbulence model and the mass transfer cavitation model based on the Rayleigh-Plesset equation to provide a comprehensive understanding of the cavitation-vortex interaction mechanism. The predicted hydraulic performance, as well as the cavitation performance, exhibits a reasonable agreement with the experimental results. The vorticity distributions under three operation conditions were illustrated together. Based on the illustration, cavitation development enhances vorticity production and flow unsteadiness in a mixed-flow waterjet pump. Vortices are basically located at the cavity interface, particularly at the downstream interface, during cavitation. Further analyses using the relative vorticity transport equation in cavitating turbulent flows indicate that vortex dilation and baroclinic torque exhibit a steep jump as cavitation occurs. In addition, vortex stretching contributes mainly to large-scale vortex generation.

Numerical investigation of cavitation-vortex interaction in a mixed-flow waterjet pump

Unsteady cavitating turbulent flow around twisted hydrofoil is simulated with Zwart cavitation model combined with the filter-based density correction model (FBDCM). Numerical results simulated the entire process of the 3-D cavitation shedding including the re-entrant jet and side-entrant jet dynamics and were compared with the available experimental data. The distribution of finite-time Lyapunov exponent (FTLE) was used to analyze the 3-D behavior of the re-entrant jet from the Lagrangian viewpoint, which shows that it can significantly influence the particle trackers in the attached cavity. Further analysis indicates that the different flow behavior on the suction side with different attack angle can be identified with Lagrangian coherent structures (LCS). For the area with a large attack angle, the primary shedding modifies the flow pattern on the suction side. With the decrease in attack angle, the attached cavity tends to be steady, and LCS A is close to the upper wall. A further decrease in attack angle eliminates LCS A in the boundary layer. The FTLE distribution also indicates that the decreasing attack angle induces a thinner boundary layer along the foil surface on the suction side.

Numerical investigation of unsteady cavitating turbulent flows around twisted hydrofoil from the Lagrangian viewpoint

The present paper studies the ventilated cavitation over a NACA0015 hydrofoil by numerical methods. The corresponding cavity evolutions are obtained at three ventilation rates by using the level set method. To depict the complicated turbulent flow structure, the filter-based density corrected model (FBDCM) and the modified partially-averaged Navier-Stokes (MPANS) model are applied in the present numerical analyses. It is indicated that the predicted results of the cavitation shedding dynamics by both turbulence models agree fairly well with the experimental data. It is also noted that the shedding frequency and the super cavity length predicted by the MPANS method are closer to the experiment data as compared to that predicted by the FBDCM model. The simulation results show that in the ventilated cavitation, the vapor cavity and the air cavity have the same shedding frequency. As the ventilated rate increases, the vapor cavity is depressed rapidly. The cavitation-vortex interaction in the ventilated cavitation is studied based on the vorticity transport equation (VTE) and the Lagrangian coherent structure (LCS). Those results demonstrate that the vortex dilatation and baroclinic torque terms are highly dependent on the evolution of the cavitation. In addition, from the LCSs and the tracer particles in the flow field, one may see the process from the attached cavity to the cloud cavity.

Jiajian Zhou

Papers

Large eddy simulation of turbulent attached cavitating flow with special emphasis on large scale structures of the hydrofoil wake and turbulence-cavitation interactions

Multi-objective optimization of a mixed-flow pump impeller using modified NSGA-II algorithm

Numerical investigation of cavitation-vortex interaction in a mixed-flow waterjet pump

Numerical investigation of unsteady cavitating turbulent flows around twisted hydrofoil from the Lagrangian viewpoint

Numerical analyses of ventilated cavitation over a 2-D NACA0015 hydrofoil using two turbulence modeling methods