Modeling Transient Vaporous Cavitating Flow in Pipelines by a Two-Phase Homogeneous Flow Model

Vaporous cavitating flow may occur in pipelines when a water hammer causes pressure to drop to saturated vapor pressure. This paper presents a two-phase homogeneous flow model for transient vaporous cavitating flows. The homogeneous flow model consists of continuity and momentum balance equations and an equation describing the volume fraction of vapor. A two-step finite difference MacCormack scheme is used to solve the model. The calculated results obtained from the model are compared with those of the classical discrete gas cavity model (DGCM) and with experimental data from the literature. For all test cases, the model converged at a similar number of grids. The numerical results indicate that the model can reproduce cavitation events well, especially for the prediction of the first maximum pressure peak after cavity collapse. The model also provides direct access to the vapor volume fraction at each location as a function of time. Through numerical analyses, the initial vapor volume fraction in the model is selected as 10⁻⁷; with this selection, the numerical results are in good agreement with experimental data. The model also exhibits comparable predictive capability with respect to the DGCM and superior performance under some operating conditions. Nevertheless, neither of these two models can appropriately estimate the pressure phase in severe cavitation events.