Numerical investigation of cavitating flows for marine propulsors using an unstructured mesh technique

• A multi-phase RANS solver was developed for the simulation of cavitating flows.
• Fully unsteady flow simulations involving rotor–stator interaction were performed.
• A conventional marine propeller was studied for validation.
• A waterjet pump with a complex rotor–stator-duct configuration was simulated.
• The development of cavity and the performance behavior were studied.

In the present study, the cavitating flows around marine propulsors have been numerically investigated by using a multi-phase RANS flow solver based on pseudo-compressibility and a homogeneous mixture model using unstructured meshes. To handle the relative motion between the rotating rotor and the stator, an overset mesh technique was adopted. The mass transfer rate between the liquid and vapor phases was determined by Merkle’s cavitation model based on the difference between the local and vapor pressure. The calculations were made for the P4381 marine propeller with different cavitation numbers at several advancing ratios. It was shown that the vapor structure, such as cavitation size and shape, was well captured at cavitating flow conditions. It was observed that the cavitation breakdown behavior was also well captured by the present method. Good agreement was obtained between the present results and the experiment for the integrated blade loadings, such as thrust and torque. The calculations were also made for a water-jet pump configuration at several flow conditions, and the cavitation breakdown behaviors for total headrise, power and thrust were validated by comparing the results with the experiment. The blade area covered by the cavitation and the shape of tip leakage cavitation were also compared with the experiment. Reasonable agreement between the predicted results and the experiment was obtained.