THE ADAPTIVE PLIC-VOF METHOD IN CAVITATING FLOW SIMULATIONS

Piecewise linear interface calculation (PLIC) schemes have been extensively employed in the volume of fluid (VOF) method for interface capturing in numerical simulations of multiphase flows without phase changes. The adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) technique is often adopted to increase the local mesh resolution dynamically within the cells that contain the interface. Cavitation appears when local static pressure drops below the water vapor pressure and usually causes significant impacts on hydraulic devices. A PLIC-VOF method with AMR has been adopted to capture the interface between liquid and vapor phases in cavitating flows. A modified version of the Schnerr-Sauer cavitation model has been used to compute the local mass transport rate for the vaporization and condensation processes. Turbulent eddy viscosity is evaluated by using the large eddy simulation (LES). Simulations are performed under the framework of OpenFOAM with a modified flow solver. Numerical simulations of cavitating flows around axisymmetric hemispherical structures have been successfully performed using the adaptive PLIC-VOF method. The numerical results confirmed that the adaptive PLIC-VOF method can solve the cavitating flows accurately and adequately.