Evaluation of a new cavitation erosion metric based on fluid-solid energy transfer in channel flow simulations

Abstract

Although there have been extensive investigations characterizing cavitation phenomenon in fuel injectors, much is still unknown about the mechanisms driving cavitation-induced erosion, and how these complicated physics should be represented in a model. In lieu of computationally expensive fluid-structure interaction modeling, the Eulerian mixture modeling approach has been accepted as an efficient means of capturing cavitation phenomena. However, there remains a need to link the erosive potential of cloud collapse events with the subsequent material deformation and damage of neighboring surfaces. Even though several cavitation erosion indices have been proposed in the literature, no single metric has been identified as universally applicable across all injector-relevant conditions. The objective of this work is to identify parameters that characterize the erosive potential of cavitation cloud collapse mechanisms that are likely to occur within injector orifices. While a commonly employed cavitation erosion metric, namely the maximum local pressure, was found to provide indications of potential sites for pitting and material rupture from single impact events, no additional information could be determined regarding the material erosion process. To improve representation of the incubation period within the cavitation erosion process, a new metric was derived based on cumulative energy absorbed by the solid material from repeated hydrodynamic impacts. Through evaluation of predicted cavitation cloud collapse events in a channel geometry against available experimental data, the stored energy metric yielded insight into the erosive potential of recorded impact events. The stored energy metric provided a means to accurately predict the influence of flow conditions on the incubation period before material erosion. ...