Numerical study of sheet cavitation breakoff phenomenon on a cascade hydrofoil

Two-dimensional unsteady cavity flow through a cascade of hydrofoils is numerically calculated. Particular attention is focused on instability phenomena of a sheet cavity in the transient cavitation condition, and the mechanism of the breakoff phenomenon is examined. TVD-MacCormack's scheme employing a locally homogeneous model of compressible gas-liquid two-phase medium is applied to analyze the cavity flows. The present method permits us to treat the entire cavitating/noncavitating unsteady flowfield. By analyzing the numerical results in detail, it becomes clear that there are at least two mechanisms in the breakoff phenomenon of the sheet cavity: one is that re-entrant jets play a dominant role in such a breakoff phenomenon, and the other is that pressure waves propagating inside the cavity bring about another type of breakoff phenomenon accompanying with cavity surface waves.