Xianwu Luo

A review of cavitation in hydraulic machinery

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.

Three-dimensional large eddy simulation and vorticity analysis of unsteady cavitating flow around a twisted hydrofoil

Large Eddy Simulation (LES) was coupled with a mass transfer cavitation model to predict unsteady 3-D turbulent cavitating flows around a twisted hydrofoil. The wall-adapting local eddy-viscosity (WALE) model was used to give the Sub-Grid Scale (SGS) stress term. The predicted 3-D cavitation evolutions, including the cavity growth, break-off and collapse downstream, and the shedding cycle as well as its frequency agree fairly well with experimental results. The mechanism for the interactions between the cavitation and the vortices was discussed based on the analysis of the vorticity transport equation related to the vortex stretching, volumetric expansion/contraction and baroclinic torque terms along the hydrofoil mid-plane. The vortical flow analysis demonstrates that cavitation promotes the vortex production and the flow unsteadiness. In non-cavitation conditions, the streamline smoothly passes along the upper wall of the hydrofoil with no boundary layer separation and the boundary layer is thin and attached to the foil except at the trailing edge. With decreasing cavitation number, the present case has σ = 1.07, and the attached sheet cavitation becomes highly unsteady, with periodic growth and break-off to form the cavitation cloud. The expansion due to cavitation induces boundary layer separation and significantly increases the vorticity magnitude at the cavity interface. A detailed analysis using the vorticity transport equation shows that the cavitation accelerates the vortex stretching and dilatation and increases the baroclinic torque as the major source of vorticity generation. Examination of the flow field shows that the vortex dilatation and baroclinic torque terms increase in the cavitating case to the same magnitude as the vortex stretching term, while for the non-cavitating case these two terms are zero.

Numerical Simulation of Cavity Shedding from a Three-Dimensional Twisted Hydrofoil and Induced Pressure Fluctuation by Large-Eddy Simulation

Simulation of cavity shedding around a three-dimensional twisted hydrofoil has been conducted by large eddy simulation coupling with a mass transfer cavitation model based on the Rayleigh-Plesset equation. From comparison of the numerical results with experimental observations, e.g., cavity shedding evolution, it is validated that the unsteady cavitating flow around a twisted hydrofoil is reasonably simulated by the proposed method. Numerical results clearly reproduce the cavity shedding process, such as cavity development, breaking-off and collapsing in the downstream. Regarding vapor shedding in the cavitating flow around three-dimensional foils, it is primarily attributed to the effect of the re-entrant flow consisting of a re-entrant jet and a pair of side-entrant jets. Formation of the re-entrant jet in the rear part of an attached cavity is affected by collapse of the last shedding vapor. Numerical results also show that the cavity shedding causes the surface pressure fluctuation of the hydrofoil and the force vibration. Accompanying the cavity evolution, the wave of pressure fluctuation propagates in two directions, namely, from the leading edge of the foil to the trailing edge and from the central plane to the side of the hydrofoil along the span. It is seen that the large pressure fluctuation occurs at the central part of the hydrofoil, where the flow incidence is larger.

Unsteady Numerical Simulation of Cavitating Turbulent Flow Around a Highly Skewed Model Marine Propeller

The cavitating flows around a highly skewed model marine propeller in both uniform flow and wake flow have been simulated by applying a mass transfer cavitation model based on Rayleigh‐Plesset equation and k- shear stress transport (SST) turbulence model. From comparison of numerical results with the experiment, it is seen that the thrust and torque coefficients of the propeller are predicted satisfactory. It is also clarified from unsteady simulation of cavitating flow around the propeller in wake flow that the whole process of cavitating-flow evolution can be reasonably reproduced including sheet cavitation and tip vortex cavitation observed in the experiments. Furthermore, to study the effect of pressure fluctuation on the surrounding, pressure fluctuations induced by the cavitation as well as the propeller rotation are predicted at three reference positions above the propeller for comparison with the experimental data: The amplitudes of the dominant components corresponding to the first, second, and third blade passing frequencies were satisfactorily predicted. It is noted that the maximum difference of pressure fluctuation between the calculation and experiment reached 20%, which might be acceptable by usual engineering applications. DOI: 10.1115/1.4003355

Experimental study of the pressure fluctuations in a pump turbine at large partial flow conditions

Frequent shifts of output and operating mode require a pump turbine with excellent stability. Current researches show that large partial flow conditions in pump mode experience positive-slope phenomena with a large head drop. The pressure fluctuation at the positive slope is crucial to the pump turbine unit safety. The operating instabilities at large partial flow conditions for a pump turbine are analyzed. The hydraulic performance of a model pump turbine is tested with the pressure fluctuations measured at unstable operating points near a positive slope in the performance curve. The hydraulic performance tests show that there are two separated positive-slope regions for the pump turbine, with the flow discharge for the first positive slope from 0.85 to 0.91 times that at the maximum efficiency point. The amplitudes of the pressure fluctuations at these unstable large partial flow conditions near the first positive slope are much larger than those at stable operating condtions. A dominant frequency is measured at 0.2 times the impeller rotational frequency in the flow passage near the impeller exit, which is believed to be induced by the rotating stall in the flow passage of the wicket gates. The test results also show hysteresis with pressure fluctuations when the pump turbine is operated near the first positive slope. The hysteresis creates different pressure fluctuations for those operation points even though their flow rates and heads are similar respectively. The pressure fluctuation characteristics at large partial flow conditions obtained by the present study will be helpful for the safe operation of pumped storage units.

NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE VENTILATED CAVITATING FLOW AROUND AN UNDER-WATER VEHICLE BASED ON A THREE-COMPONENT CAVITATION MODEL *

Based on the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equations and mass transfer model, an approach, where a three-component cavitation model is proposed, is presented to simulate ventilated cavitating flow as well as natural cavitation. In the proposed cavitation model, the initial content of nucleus in the local flow field is updated instantaneously, and is coupled with the Rayleigh-Plesset equation to capture the cavity development. The proposed model is applied to simulate the cavitating flow around an under-water vehicle in different cavitation conditions. The results indicate that for the natural and ventilated cavitation simulation, the predicted cavitation characteristics including the cavity length, cavity diameter and cavity shape agree satisfactorily with the analytic and experimental results, for the ventilated cavitation, the proposed methods reproduce the special behavior that the axial line of the cavity bends and rises at the tail part. The study concludes that the ventilated flow rate of the non-condensate gas influences the development of natural cavitation as well as ventilated cavitation, and the vapor cavity is suppressed remarkably by the gas cavity with the increase of the gas ventilation.

Numerical investigation of unsteady cavitating turbulent flow around a full scale marine propeller

This paper treats the unsteady cavitating turbulent flow around a full scale marine propeller operated in non-uniform ship wake. The RANS method combined with k−ω SST turbulence model and the mass transfer cavitation model was applied for the flow simulation. It is noted that both the propeller performance and the unsteady features of cavitating turbulent flow around the propeller predicted by the numerical calculation agreed well with the experimental data. Due to the non-uniform wake inflow and gravity effect, there occurred periodical procedure for cavity development such as cavitation inception, growth, shrinking, etc near the blade tip for the propeller. The study also indicated that there was considerably large pressure fluctuation near the propeller during the operation. The 1st order frequency of pressure fluctuation predicted by numerical simulation equaled the rotating frequency of propeller blades. Both amplitude and frequency agreed with the experimental results fairly well.

Cavitation shedding dynamics around a hydrofoil simulated using a filter-based density corrected model

The unsteady turbulent cloud cavitation around a NACA66 hydrofoil was simulated using the filter-based density corrected model (FBDCM). The cloud cavitation was treated as a homogeneous liquid-vapor mixture and the effects of turbulent eddy viscosity were reduced in cavitation regions near the hydrofoil and in the wake. The numerical results (in terms of the vapor shedding structure and transient pressure pulsation due to cavitation evolution) agree well with the available experimental data, showing the validity of the FBDCM method. Furthermore, the interaction of vortex and cavitation was analyzed based on the vorticity transport equation, revealing that the cavitation evolution has a strong connection with vortex dynamics. A detailed analysis shows that the cavitation could promote the vortex production and flow unsteadiness by the dilatation and baroclinic torque terms in the vorticity transport equation.

Numerical Simulation of the Unsteady Flow in a High-Head Pump Turbine and the Runner Improvement

The unsteady flow in a high-head pump-turbine whose head-discharge curve has the positive slopes at high-partial-load operation condition was investigated. It is noted that the numerical methods is very important for predicting this kind of head-discharge curve with positive slopes, and better agreement between calculation results and experimental data was achieved by using Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model and mesh strategy with y+ controlling for numerical simulation. From the analysis of hydraulic losses at different parts in the pump turbine, it is found that the head loss at the flow passage of the guide vane and stay vane was not small at pump mode. In order to make clear the reason why the positive slopes at head-discharge curve occur, the flow between the impeller exit and the inlet of spiral casing was checked carefully. Much intensive vortex was observed near the impeller shroud, and there was strong rotor stator interaction for those operation conditions with positive slope. It is suspected the instability such as positive slope at head-discharge curve was resulted from the vortex formation near the flow channel wall. Based on the flow analysis, the runner optimization was conducted so as to mitigate the intensive rotor stator interaction. It is noted that the pressure fluctuation as well as the flow pattern was improved by applying the optimized impeller.Copyright

Cavitation in semi-open centrifugal impellers for a miniature pump

Cavitation in miniature pumps was investigated experimentally for two semi-open centrifugal impellers. Although both impellers had the same blade cross-section, one impeller had a two-dimensional blade, while the other had a leaned blade. The flows were also analyzed using a numerical model of the three-dimensional turbulent flow in the pumps near the peak efficiency point using the k-ɛ turbulence model and the VOF cavitation model. The average cavitation performance of each impeller was satisfactorily predicted by the numerical simulations. The results show that the miniature pumps have similar cavitation performances as an ordinary-size pump, with the cavitation performance of the semi-open impeller reduced by increased axial tip clearances. Also, both the hydraulic and cavitation performance of the semi-open impeller were improved by the leaned blade. The results also show that uniform flow upstream of the impeller inlet will improve the cavitation performance of a miniature pump.