Numerical Analysis of Airfoil NACA0015 and Centrifugal Pump’s Cavitation Characteristic Based on the Thermodynamic Effects

Cavitation is not only driven by the pressure difference, but also affected by the temperature difference. In high temperature water or cryogenic fluids, temperature decline of liquids is caused by latent heat of vaporization. The cavitation characteristics in this conditions are different from that of room temperature. The thermodynamic effects of cavitation have very important application in the fluid machine, so high temperature and low temperature cavitation are comprehensively applied at the astronautics. The presented paper researched thermodynamics cavitation based on the Rayleigh-Plesset equation and deduced a new thermodynamics cavitation model with fully considering thermodynamic effects on the basic transport equation. The airfoil NACA0015 was calculated by the new model and the thermal cavitation characteristic was calculated at different temperature, that is, 25°C, 50°C and 100°C. Besides, the pressure coefficient was contrasted with experiment data at different temperature. The centrifugal pump’s suction performance curve was calculated at 25°C and 100°C respectively, and the main conclusion is that the suction performance of the pump at the high temperature is better than that at the normal temperature. The thermodynamic effects of cavitation model are more accurate at predicated centrifugal pump’s suction performance, which can provide beneficial referenced indicator for energy conservation.