A numerical formulation for cavitating flows around marine propellers based on variational multiscale method

A numerical approach for modelling cavitating flows over moving hydrodynamic surfaces is presented. The operating fluid is modelled as an isothermal homogeneous mixture of water vapor and liquid phases. The flow field is governed by the Navier–Stokes equations along with a transport equation for the vapor volume fraction. The Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian description of the continuum is adopted to handle fluid flow simulations on moving domains. The residual based variational multiscale method is used to model the turbulent flow together with wall modelling implemented by the weak imposition of the no-slip boundary condition. Merkle and Zwart cavitation models are implemented and compared. First, a cavitating flow over a 3D hemispherical fore-body is modeled to perform a detailed comparison between two models. Next, the cavitating flow over the INSEAN E779A marine propeller is modeled and results are compared to available experimental data showing good agreement.