NUMERICAL-SIMULATION OF CAVITATING FLOW USING THE UPSTREAM FINITE-ELEMENT METHOD

A finite element method is proposed to predict cavitating flows in arb itrarily shaped channels. An upwind scheme, based on the Petrov-Galerk in method using an exponential weighting function, is employed to elim inate the numerical instability due to the advection term. The solutio n algorithm is parallel to a fractional step method. The calculation d omain is divided into quadrilateral elements. The pressure is defined at the centroid of the element and assumed to be constant within the e lement. The other variables, such as the velocity and void fraction, a re defined on the nodes. Cavitating flows around a circular cylinder a re simulated by the present finite element method. The cavitation occu rrence relates closely to the vortex motion of the water in the sheare d layer in accordance with experimental observations, and the cavitati on regions almost coincide with the regions where cavitation bubbles a re observed frequently in experiments. This indicates that the present method is indeed applicable to the prediction of cavitating flows. (C ) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.