The cavitation model developed in CRUNCH CFD is an advanced framework that was given an innovative research award by NASA. This framework permits the user to model evaporative cooling effects and temperature/thermodynamic changes due to cavitation in fluids that operate at elevated temperatures close to the critical point such as superheated water and cryogenic fluids (e.g. liquid hydrogen and LNG).
The cavitation model has been extensively validated to provide pressure and temperature distribution in the the cavity as demonstrated here for a case of liquid nitrogen flowing over a hydrofoil. Note the accurate prediction of temperature drop (order of 2K) due to cavitation and the accompanying reduction the cavity pressure that leads to improved performance in pumping machinery that operate these fluids. Advanced bubbly model also provides dynamics loads due to cloud cavitation collapse and has been validated for cavitation over NACA0015 hydrofoils and shown to provide fluctuating lift loads both in terms of the amplitude and frequency of the cloud cavitation instability.
