Multiscale modeling of different cavitating flow patterns around NACA66 hydrofoil

The multiscale effect of cavitation is a complicated multiphase phenomenon involving macroscale cavities and microscale bubbles. The cavitating flows at four different patterns around a (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) NACA66 hydrofoil are simulated based on the multiscale model under the Eulerian–Lagrangian framework. The volume-of-fluid method is used to capture the transportation of large-scale cavities in the Eulerian framework, while small-scale bubbles smaller than the threshold value of computational cells are solved using the Lagrangian method and the simplified Rayleigh–Plesset equation. The turbulent flow is solved using the large-eddy simulation approach, and the two-way coupling source for momentum is calculated by integrating interacting forces of discrete bubbles. This work proposes a multiscale model to better investigate the vapor structure with an extensive range of length scales, and analyzes the evolution mechanism of vapor morphology and scale in different cavitation patterns first. The simulation results are compared with the experimental observations to verify the accuracy of the numerical method. Meanwhile, the results illustrate that the turbulence has a significant influence on the bubble behavior. With a decrease in cavitation number, the number and size of discrete bubbles increase significantly, and the probability density function of discrete bubble diameter similarly conforms to Gamma distribution at all cavitation patterns. For inception cavitation, sheet cavitation, and supercavitation, the shape of large-scale cavity is relatively stable, and the standard deviation of the number and Sauter mean diameter of microscale bubbles are much smaller than cloud cavitating flow. In contrast, the large-scale cavity sheds periodically in the cloud cavitating flow leading to the periodical variation of the number and the Sauter mean diameter of microscale bubbles as well. Additionally, the discrete bubbles are mainly distributed in the region with strong turbulence intensity and high vorticity.