Estimation of cavitation erosion intensity using CFD: Numerical comparison of three different methods

Paper in proceeding, 2015

The material erosion potentially caused by cavitation is a major problem in propulsion and hydro-machinery. In order to numerically predict the cavitation erosion several methodologies have been presented in the literature. In this paper we look into three different approaches for obtaining estimates of the potential cavitation erosion intensity from CFD simulations: two using the pressure or the vapour fraction obtained from macroscopic simulation and one based on the pressure obtained from microscopic bubble dynamics. The three methods are applied to the case of cavitating flow over a NACA0015 foil. None of the methods was found to successfully predict the erosive behavior. This results highlight the need for further work in this area.