Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 29 (8) (2015) 3287~3296

www.springerlink.com/content/1738-494x(Print)/1976-3824(Online)
DOI 10.1007/s12206-015-0727-4

Comparative study of incompressible and isothermal compressible flow solvers

for cavitating flow dynamics†
Sunho Park1 and Shin Hyung Rhee2,*
1
Department of Ocean Engineering, Korea Maritime and Ocean University, Busan, 606-791, Korea
2
Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, Research Institute of Marine Systems Engineering,
Seoul National University, Seoul, 151-742, Korea

(Manuscript Received February 19, 2015; Revised April 8, 2015; Accepted April 21, 2015)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Abstract

Incompressible flow solvers are generally used for numerical analysis of cavitating flows, but with limitations in handling compressi-
bility effects on vapor phase. To study compressibility effects on vapor phase and cavity interface, pressure-based incompressible and
isothermal compressible flow solvers based on a cell-centered finite volume method were developed using the OpenFOAM libraries. To
validate the solvers, cavitating flow around a hemispherical head-form body was simulated and validated against the experimental data.
The cavity shedding behavior, length of a re-entrant jet, drag history, and the Strouhal number were compared between the two solvers.
The results confirmed that computations of the cavitating flow including compressibility effects improved the reproduction of cavitation
dynamics.
Keywords: Cavitation; Computational fluid dynamics; Isothermal compressible flow solver; Incompressible flow solver
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

examples are as follows. Rincon and Elder [12] presented a

1. Introduction
pressure-based procedure for all Mach number flows includ-
Cavitation is the physical phenomenon in which the liquid ing the transition. Issa and Javareshkian [13] described a pres-
phase changes to vapor phase under a certain pressure. The sure-based implicit procedure with a high resolution Total
liquid phase is usually treated as an incompressible flow, variation diminishing (TVD) schemes. Darbandi et al. [14]
while the vapor phase is considered a compressible flow. To introduced a new conceptual linearization strategy to improve
better understand cavitating flows correctly, however, both the performance of a primitive shock-capturing pressure-based
incompressible and compressible flows should be considered finite volume method. Javadi et al. [15] extended a classic
at the same time. incompressible pressure-based algorithm to simulate three-
Cavitating flows were numerically studied using incom- dimensional compressible-incompressible turbulent flows.
pressible or compressible flow solver. In terms of computa- Kadioglu and Sussman [16] presented adaptive solution tech-
tional methods, incompressible flows are traditionally discre- niques for simulating underwater explosions and implosions
tized by pressure-based methods, where the pressure is used as using a semi-implicit algorithm. Coutier-Delgosha et al. [17]
a primary variable. On the other hand, compressible flows are and Ji et al. [7] pointed out that turbulence plays a significant
characterized by the use of density as the primary variable and role in the compressibility effects and proposed modified k-ω
usually discretized by density-based methods. Pressure-based turbulence models. Thus developed algorithm and schemes
methods for cavitating flows [1-8] accompany a disadvantage with pressure-based methods for compressible flows were
in the compressible vapor phase, while density-based methods applied to shock waves [12, 13] and multiphase flows such as
[9-11] show weakness in the incompressible liquid phase. underwater explosions [16] and cavitation [18, 19]. Venka-
To overcome the disadvantage with pressures-based nu- teswaran et al. [18] presented algorithms for the liquid and
merical methods in the vapor, pressure-based methods for vapor phases and two-phase mixture region in cavitating flows
compressible flows were utilized. To employ those methods, and compared the results with those by incompressible and
studies on the algorithm and schemes were carried out. Some isothermal compressible flow formulation. Re-entrant liquid
*
jets showed some marked differences between incompressible
Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 2 880 1500, Fax.: +82 2 880 9289
E-mail address: shr@snu.ac.kr
and isothermal compressible flow cases. Goncalves et al. [19]
†
Recommended by Editor Dongshin Shin presented a pressure-based incompressible flow algorithm and
© KSME & Springer 2015
3288 S. Park and S. H. Rhee / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 29 (8) (2015) 3287~3296

where Pv is the vapor pressure and r is the density of the fluid.

The cavitation number was 0.3 based on the free-stream ve-
locity and reference pressure (Po). Cavitation begins to form in
the low-pressure region at the end of the hemispherical head-
form and propagates downstream as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Problem description of axisymmetric hemispherical head-form 3. Computational methods

body.
3.1 Governing equations
a density-based compressible flow approach, including a pre- The equations for the mass and momentum conservation
conditioning algorithm to treat the pure liquid incompressible were solved to obtain the velocity and pressure fields. The
flow region, and applied it to Venturi cavitating flows using equation for the conservation of mass, or the continuity equa-
the barotropic relation model. tion, can be written as follows:
Numerical analysis of cavitation with a compressibility ef-
fect clearly has advantages in describing the cavity dynamics. ¶r m r
+ Ñ × ( r mvm ) = 0, (2)
Also, it is needed to predict cavitation erosion, which is ¶t
caused by an unsteady fluctuating cavity. In the present study,
an unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equa- here n is the velocity vector and the subscript m indicates the
tions solver that couples the velocity, phase composition, and mixture phase.
pressure was developed using a cell-centered finite volume The equation for the conservation of momentum can be
method. The developed software, SNUFOAM-Cavitation [20, written as
21], is based on the OpenFOAM platform, an object-oriented
r
open source CFD tool-kit [22]. SNUFOAM-Cavitation can ¶r mvm r r
+ Ñ × ( r mvmvm ) = -ÑP + Ñ × æçt ö÷ , (3)
handle both incompressible and isothermal compressible ¶t è ø
flows with cavitation models based on the barotropic relation
and two-phase mixture flow models [1-4]. where P is the static pressure and the stress tensor (t) is given
The objectives of the present study were by
(1) to develop pressure-based incompressible and isother-
mal compressible flow solvers, termed SNUFOAM-Cavita- é r r 2 r ù
tion; ë
( 3
)
τ = μm,eff ê Ñvm + ÑvmT - Ñ × vm I ú ,
û
(4)

(2) to understand the influence of incompressible and iso-

thermal compressible flows on cavity dynamics by applying
the two developed solvers to cavitating flow around a hemi-
spherical head-form body.
The paper is organized as follows. The physical problem is
described first, followed by the computational methods. The
computational results are then presented and discussed. Fi-
nally, concluding remarks provide a summary and the conclu-
sions of the study.
with the second term on the right-hand side representing the
volume dilation effect, mm,eff = mm +mm,t, where mm is the mo-
lecular viscosity, and the subscripts eff and t denote effective
and turbulent conditions, respectively. I is the unit tensor.
The mixture properties of the density and viscosity were
computed as a function of a, as
r m = a v r v + a l rl , (5)
m m = a v m v + a l ml , (6)

2. Problem description
where a is the volume fraction, and subscripts v and l indicate
A large number of studies have been carried out experimen- vapor and liquid, respectively.
tally and numerically for cavitating flows around an axisym- Once the Reynolds averaging approach for turbulence mod-
metric hemispherical head-form body due to their importance eling was applied, the unknown term, the Reynolds stress term,
to naval hydrodynamics applications. An axisymmetric hemi- could be related to the mean velocity gradients by the Boussi-
spherical head-form body was adopted for the present study, nesq hypothesis, as follows:
as shown in Fig. 1. The Reynolds number (Re), based on the
free-stream velocity (U¥) of 0.7 m/s and the diameter of the r r é r r r ù
hemispherical head-form body of 0.2 m, was 1.36´105. The (ë
) (
2
3
)
- r m vm' vm' = m m,t ê Ñ vm + Ñ vmT - r k + m m,t Ñ vm ú I .
û
(7)
cavitation number (s) was defined as follows:
3.2 Turbulence closure
Po - Pv
s= , (1)
1 Based on the results of Park and Rhee [20], the standard k-e
rU ¥2
2 turbulence model, which is based on the Boussinesq hypothe-
 S. Park and S. H. Rhee / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 29 (8) (2015) 3287~3296 3289

sis with transport equations for the turbulent kinetic energy, k, [19], the expressions for Re and Rc are obtained as
and its dissipation rate, e, was adopted for turbulence closure
[23]. The turbulent viscosity, mm,t, is computed by combining k ·
Re = m (1 - f v )
and e via mm,t = rCmk2/e, and the turbulence kinetic energy and
(11)
its rate of dissipation are obtained from the transport equa- vch 2 Pv - P
tions:
= Ce r v rl (1 - fv ) ,
g 3 rl
·
¶ r éæ μ ö ù Rc = m f v
¶t
( )
( ρm k ) + Ñ × ρm kvm = Ñ × êçç μm + m,t
σt
÷÷ Ñk ú
(8) vch 2 P - Pv (12)
ëêè ø ûú = Cc ρl ρl fv ,
+ Gk + Gb - ρε - YM + Sk , γ 3 ρl

¶ r éæ μ ö ù
¶t
( )
( ρm ε ) + Ñ × ρm εvm = Ñ × êçç μm + m,t
σt
÷÷ Ñε ú where the model constants Cc for condensation and Ce for
ëêè ø ûú (9) evaporation of bubbles are set to 0.01 and 0.01, based on the
ε ε2 parametric study results for· cavitation on a 2D modified
+ C1ε ( Gk + C3εGb ) - Ccε ρm , NACA 66 hydrofoil [21]; m represents the phase change
k k
rate between vapor and liquid phases. g is the surface tension,
where Cm is an empirical constant of 0.09. Here, the model and vch is the characteristic velocity, which reflects the effect
constants C1e, C2e, sk, and se are 1.44, 1.92, 1.0, and 1.3, re- of the local slip velocity and takes a value approximately
spectively. The turbulent viscosity was used to calculate the equal to k with k being the local turbulent kinetic energy.
Reynolds stresses to close the momentum equations. A wall Re and Rc are the rates of vapor evaporation and condensation,
function [23, 24] was used for the near-wall treatment. The respectively.
use of a wall function for cavitating flows was studied in detail
and presented in another work of the authors. At least for the
3.4 Pressure-velocity coupling
problems of interest to naval hydrodynamics, which were
largely driven by inertia/pressure, the use of wall functions The equation for the conservation of momentum was dis-
seemed to be sufficient to capture the prominent features of cretized as follows:
the cavitating flow there [20, 21].
r r
a P v P + å a N v N = S - ÑP , (13)
3.3 Cavitation modeling

The volume fraction transport equation was considered to
account for the cavitation dynamics. The cavitation process
was governed by thermodynamics and the kinetics of phase
change dynamics in the system. For the present study, a two-
phase mixture flow model was used. The transport equation
proposed by Singhal et al. [4] is expressed as follows:
where the subscripts P and N denote an owner and neighbor
cells, respectively. aP and aN are matrix coefficients of
each cell. S is a source term. For simplicity, a new operator,
r
H (v ) , was introduced, which contains the off-diagonal part
of the momentum equation matrix [22]. Using the new opera-
tor, the equation for momentum conservation was written as

¶f v r m r r r
+ Ñ × ( f v r mvm ) aP vP = H (v ) - ÑP. (14)
¶t
(10)
æm ö
= Ñ × çç t Ñf v ÷÷ + Re - Rc , In the incompressible flow, the divergence of the mixture
s r
è v ø velocity, Ñ × v , is zero. However, noteworthy in cavitating
flow, cavity evaporation and condensation causes a volume
where fv is the vapor mass fraction, sv is the turbulent Prandtl dilation. Thus, the divergence of the mixture velocity is not
number for the vapor. Re and Rc need to be related to the bub- vanished. From the expression for the mixture density and
r
ble dynamics and volume fraction. In the equation, either mass conservation equation, Ñ × v is expressed as follows:
evaporation, Re, or condensation, Rc, source term was acti-
vated depending on the local pressure level compared to the r 1 ¶r m rl - rv ¶a v
Ñ×v = - =
vapor pressure. For example, when the local pressure was r m ¶t rm ¶t
higher than the vapor pressure, the condensation source term æ 1 1 ö a ( t + Dt ) - a v ( t )
was activated. To account for the bubble dynamics, the re- = çç - ÷÷ v (15)
r
è v r l ø Dt
duced Rayleigh-Plesset equation was employed. Following
the approach used by Singhal et al. [4] and considering the æ 1 1 ö·
= çç - ÷÷ m .
limiting bubble size, i.e., assuming that the typical bubble r
è v r l ø
diameter is the same as the maximum possible bubble size
3290 S. Park and S. H. Rhee / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 29 (8) (2015) 3287~3296

By taking the divergence for the momentum conservation 3.5 Numerical methods
equation, Eq. (15) yielded
A pressure-based cell-centered finite volume method was
æ 1 r ö æ 1 ö employed along with a linear reconstruction scheme that al-
Ñ × çç H (v ) ÷÷ - Ñ × çç ÑP ÷÷ lows the use of computational cells of arbitrary shapes. Time
a
è P ø a
è P ø
(16) derivative terms were discretized using the first-order accurate
æ 1 1 ö· backward implicit scheme, which has been shown to be suffi-
= çç - ÷÷ m .
è r v rl ø cient for engineering accuracy with carefully chosen time step
sizes. The solution gradients at the cell centers were evaluated
This is the form of the pressure-correction equation for in- by the least-square method. The convection terms were discre-
compressible flows. More details on the pressure-correction tized using a quadratic upwind interpolation scheme, and the
equation used are described in Kim and Brewton [26]. diffusion terms were discretized using a central differencing
For isothermal compressible flows, the equation for the scheme. The transport equations for the momentum and vol-
conservation of mass was written as ume-fraction were solved explicitly. The pressure-velocity
coupling and overall solution procedure were based on a Pres-
1 æ ¶r r ö r sure-implicit with splitting order (PISO) type segregated algo-
+ v × Ñr ÷ + Ñ × v = 0. (17)
r çè ¶t ø rithm [28] adapted to an unstructured grid. The van Leer
scheme [29] was used for the cavity interface capturing. The
The density can substitute for the pressure from the equa- discretized algebraic equations were solved using a pointwise
tion of state for both phases. The ideal gas equation of state for Gauss-Seidel iterative algorithm, while an algebraic multi-grid
the vapor phase and the adiabatic or isentropic equation of method was employed to accelerate solution convergence
state for the liquid phase were expressed as, respectively: process.

P
= constant , (18) 4. Results and discussion
r
æ ¶P ö 1 4.1 Uncertainty assessment
ç ÷ = 2, (19)
è ¶r øs c To evaluate the numerical uncertainty in the computational
results of the isothermal compressible flow solver, the Grid
where g was the specific-heat ratio, and c was the speed of convergence index (GCI) was adopted. The time step interval
sound. For the both phases, the equations of state were simpli- of 0.0001 second was used, which corresponded to maximum
fied as r = aP, a is constant. The conservation equation was Courant number of 0.01. The numerical uncertainty of the
written as incompressible flow solver was evaluated and showed good
mesh convergence behavior with errors of less than 0.5%. [20].
1 æ ¶aP r ö r In the present study, the numerical uncertainty of the isother-
+ v × ÑaP ÷ + Ñ × v
aP çè ¶t ø mal compressible flow solver was evaluated. Three levels of
(20) mesh resolution were considered for solution convergence of
1 æ ¶aP r rö r
= + Ñ × ( vaP ) - aP × Ñv ÷ + Ñ × v = 0. the drag coefficient and the cavity length at the cavitation
aP çè ¶t ø
number of 0.3.
The order of accuracy can be estimated as
Considering volume dilation in Eq. (15), the pressure-
correction equation for isothermal compressible flows was
expressed as
p= ë ( )
ln é(jmedium - jcoarse ) / j fine - jmedium ù
û, (22)
ln r
1 æ ¶P r rö
ç + Ñ × ( vP ) - PÑ × v ÷
P è ¶t ø
(21) where jcoarse, jmedium, and jfine are solutions at the coarse, me-
æ 1 r ö æ 1 ö æ 1 1 ö· dium, and fine levels, respectively. The Richardson extrapo-
+ Ñ × çç H ( v ) ÷÷ - Ñ × çç ÑP ÷÷ = çç - ÷÷ m,
è aP ø è aP ø è rv rl ø lated value (RE) and the Convergence index (CI) were also
calculated by Eqs. (23) and (24), respectively.
where 1/P was calculated using the harmonic relation, 1/P =
1/Pv + 1/Pl. The overall procedure of the developed isothermal
RE = j fine +
(j fine - jmedium ) , (23)
compressible cavitating flow solver was nearly the same as
r p -1
that of Senocak and Shyy [27]. The only difference was the
e
density variation of each phase. Senocak and Shyy [27] used CI = , (24)
one equation to close the density for both phases. r p -1
 S. Park and S. H. Rhee / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 29 (8) (2015) 3287~3296 3291

Table 1. Numerical uncertainty assessment.

Coarse Medium Fine p/RE

CD 0.0886 0.0901 0.0909 1.868/0.0918
e 0.0166 0.0088
GCI 0.0190 0.0101
lC/R 2.159 2.183 2.196 1.822/2.211
e 0.0110 0.0059
GCI 0.0130 0.0070

Fig. 2. Boundary condition and domain extent.

where

j fine - jmedium
e = , (25)
j fine

and where r is the effective mesh refinement ratio of

(Nfine/Nmedium) = (Nmedium/Ncoarse) = 1.4, with tahe cell count, N,
and the number of dimensions, D. Table 1 summarizes the
numerical uncertainty assessment results. Overall, the solu-
tions show good mesh convergence behavior with errors from
the corresponding RE of less than 1.0 %.
The numerical stability in the computational results of the
incompressible and isothermal compressible flow solvers was Fig. 3. Mesh around hemispherical head-form body.
evaluated for various Courant numbers. The incompressible
and isothermal compressible flow solvers show numerically
stable results below the Courant number of 10 and 0.5, respec-
tively.

4.2 Incompressible flow computation

The cavitating flow around the hemispherical head-form

body at a high Reynolds number studied experimentally by
Rouse and McNown [30] was considered. Rouse and
McNown [30] did a series of experiments on the cavitation
around axisymmetric configurations. Each configuration had a
cylindrical after-body with a flow-aligned axis and one of the
hemispherical, conical, ogival or blunt fore-body shapes.
Fig. 2 shows the solution domain extent and boundary con-
ditions. The Dirichlet boundary condition, i.e., the specified
value of the velocity, was applied on the inlet boundary. On
the exit boundary, the reference pressure with extrapolated
velocity and volume fraction values was applied. The refer-
ence pressure was set on the exit boundary with the desired
cavitation number. The axisymmetric condition was applied
on the bottom boundary. A no-slip condition was applied on
the hemispherical head-form body surface. The solution do-
main extended -30 £ x/R £ 50 and 0 £ y/R £ 30 in the stream-
wise and vertical directions, respectively. The domain was set
large enough to minimize the influence of the inlet boundary.
Fig. 3 shows the mesh around hemispherical head-form body.
A C-type structured grid consisting of 11900 cells, i.e., 170
cells on the body and 70 cells in the normal direction, was
used. For the mesh designed for k-e turbulence model with a
wall function, the non-dimensionalized cell height, z/D, off the
Fig. 4. Influence of cavitation number with incompressible flow solver.
wall was 0.004, which corresponded to y+ of 50 and the
growth ratio of the cell size was 1.05.
Unsteady computations by the incompressible flow solver
were done for the Reynolds number of 1.36´105 and cavita-
tion numbers (based on U¥ and Po) of 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5
with the Courant number of 0.1. In the cavitating flow, cavita-
tion modeling of the subject flow plays an important role;
therefore, the selection of the model can affect the accuracy of
the prediction significantly. Unsteady computations in this
paper were done with the cavitation model of Singhal et al. [4]
and standard k-e turbulence model [23]. More detailed selec-
tion procedures of the cavitation and turbulence models are
described in Park and Rhee [20]. The pressure distribution on
3292 S. Park and S. H. Rhee / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 29 (8) (2015) 3287~3296

(a) Incompressible flow solver

(a) Non-cavitating flow

(b) Isothermal compressible flow solver

Fig. 6. Volume fraction contours once cavity fully developed.

(b) Cavitating flow with s = 0.3

Fig. 5. Influence of compressibility.

(a) Incompressible flow solver
the hemispherical head-form body surface for various cavita-
tion numbers was compared to existing experimental data, as
shown in Fig. 4. The horizontal axis indicates the girth length
on the surface non-dimensionalized by the diameter of the
hemisphere and the vertical axis indicates the pressure coeffi-
cient, Cp = (P-Po)/0.5rU¥2. A larger pressure overshoot at the
cavity closure was observed as the cavitation number de-
creased. Overall, however, the computed pressure distribution
in the non-cavitating and cavitating flows showed good
agreement with the existing experimental data. (b) Isothermal compressible flow solver

Fig. 7. Volume fraction contours with maximum re-entrant jet.

4.3 Isothermal compressible flow computation

To validate the developed isothermal compressible flow
solver, non-cavitating and cavitating flows around the hemi-
spherical head-form body were simulated and validated
against existing experimental data. Fig. 5 shows the pressure
coefficient distribution on the hemispherical head-form body
surface for the non-cavitating and cavitating flows with the
cavitation number of 0.3. In the non-cavitating flow, the iso-
thermal compressible flow solver well predicted the incom-
pressible flow. In the cavitating flow, the computed results of
both solvers showed good agreement with the existing ex-
perimental data except for the cavity closure. The incom-
pressible flow solver showed an earlier cavity closure, while
the pressure overshoot at the cavity closure predicted by the
isothermal compressible flow solver was more prominent. The
compressibility effect was more prominent on the cavity clo-
sure than the cavity inception. Note that the compressibility
effect was related to a re-entrant jet presented below.
The detailed features of the cavitating flow around the hem-
ispherical head-form body are presented in Figs. 6 and 7. Fig.
6 shows the volume fraction contours when the cavity was
fully developed. The overall cavity behavior was almost simi-
lar for both solvers. However, noteworthy in Fig. 6(b) is the
 S. Park and S. H. Rhee / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 29 (8) (2015) 3287~3296
(a) t = T+0/4T
(b) t = T+1/4T
(c) t = T+2/4T
(d) t = T+3/4T
Fig. 8. Volume fraction contours with cavity shedding cycle of iso-
thermal compressible flow solver.
undulation of the cavity interface. Unsteady undulation of the
cavity interface was not observed in the incompressible flow
solution. Variations of the vapor volume fraction due to a re-
entrant jet caused the change of the vapor volume, and then
the cavity interface showed unsteady undulation. The isother-
mal compressible flow solver for parabolic type formulation
could reproduce the unsteady undulation, while the incom-
pressible flow solver for elliptic type formulation could not.
The magnitude of the re-entrant jet was also different due to
the compressibility effect.
After the cavity was fully developed, a re-entrant jet was
generated at the cavity closure and convected to upstream. Fig.
7 shows the volume fraction contours when the re-entrant jet
3293
(a) Incompressible flow solver
(b) Isothermal compressible flow solver
Fig. 9. Non-dimensionalized streamwise velocity contours and stream-
lines with maximum re-entrant jet.
was developed to its greatest length. In the incompressible
flow solution, cavity shedding was seen near the cavity clo-
sure only due to a short re-entrant jet. On the other hand, in the
isothermal compressible flow solution, cavity shedding was
observed up to the middle of the cavity due to a relatively
longer re-entrant jet. The cavity was detached as shown in Fig.
7(b) and then the remaining upstream cavity was grown to
downstream again as shown in Fig. 6(b). Unsteady undulation
of the cavity interface was observed repeatedly.
Fig. 8 shows the cavity shedding cycle. Fig. 8(a) shows the
cavity with the maximum length attached to the body, where
the upstream re-entrant jet at the cavity end was generated.
Then the upstream re-entrant jet was convected upstream as
shown in Fig. 8(b). The overall length of the cavity reached its
maximum, as shown in Fig. 8(c). Fig. 8(d) shows the detached
cavity being transported downstream.
Fig. 9 shows non-dimensionalized streamwise velocity con-
tours when the re-entrant jet was fully developed. The rela-
tively strong and long re-entrant jet, which was in the reverse
direction to the freestream flow, was observed in the isother-
mal compressible flow solution. The velocity magnitude of
the re-entrant jet was approximately 20% of the freestream
one. Fig. 10 shows the non-dimensionalized turbulent eddy
viscosity contours when the re-entrant jet was fully developed.
In both cases, the turbulent viscosity was large at the cavity
closure. The turbulent viscosity in the isothermal compressible
flow solution was larger than that in the incompressible flow
solution because of the more prominent re-entrant jet.
Fig. 11 shows the time history of the drag coefficient on the
surface of 0 £ x/D £ 2. The drag coefficient of the incom-
pressible flow solution converged to a certain constant value,
while that of the isothermal compressible flow solution
showed fluctuation behavior due to the unsteady cavity shed-
3294 S. Park and S. H. Rhee / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 29 (8) (2015) 3287~3296
(a) Incompressible flow solver
(b) Isothermal compressible flow solver
Fig. 10. Non-dimensionalized turbulent viscosity contours with maxi-
mum re-entrant jet.
Fig. 11. Drag coefficient history in the surface of 0 £ x/D £ 2.
ding.
The cavity shedding frequency obtained by the drag coeffi-
cient’s time history was compared with the existing experi-
mental data [31]. Stinebring et al. [31] carried out a series of
experiments on the ventilated and natural cavitation around
axisymmetric configuration with Reynolds number of
0.35´105 to 0.55´105. Fig. 12 compares the computed and
measured cavity shedding frequencies for the hemispherical
head-form body. The Strouhal number (St) was calculated
using the obtained cavity shedding frequency. The Strouhal
number of the cavitating flow predicted by the incompressible
flow solver was zero. On the other hand, the trend in shedding
frequency was well captured by the isothermal compressible
flow solver.
Fig. 12. Strouhal number.
5. Conclusions
Incompressible and isothermal compressible flow solvers
were developed to investigate the influence of flow solver’s
fidelity level on cavity dynamics. Numerical uncertainties of
the incompressible and isothermal compressible flow solvers
were evaluated. Non-cavitating and cavitating flows around
the hemispherical head-form body were simulated by the in-
compressible and isothermal compressible flow solvers and
validated against existing experimental data, showing quite
close agreement in a three-way comparison. In the isothermal
compressible flow solution, the re-entrant jet appeared to be
relatively longer and the cavity interface showed unsteady
undulation due to a strongly unsteady re-entrant jet. The drag
coefficient of the incompressible flow solution converged to a
certain value, while that of the isothermal compressible flow
solution showed fluctuation behavior due to the unsteady cav-
ity shedding. The Strouhal number, calculated using the drag
coefficient history, well captured the overall trend. From the
results, the isothermal compressible flow computations, which
include vapor’s compressibility effects, were recommended
for the computation of cavitating flows. From the findings of
this study, the isothermal compressible flow solution is rec-
ommended for reproducing more detailed flow features and
cavity dynamics. Finally it is recommended that the cavita-
tion-vortex interaction for cavitation shedding dynamics (e.g.,
Ji et al., 2014) be considered as future work.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the Ministry of Defense (Ad-
vanced Naval Vessels Research Laboratory and Civil Military
Technology Cooperation Center) and the National Research
Foundation (2009-0083510, 2013-R1A1A-2012597, NRF-
2011-0020563, 2015037577) of the Korea government.
Nomenclature------------------------------------------------------------------------
c : Speed of sound [m/s]
Cc : Condensation coefficient [-]
 S. Park and S. H. Rhee / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 29 (8) (2015) 3287~3296 3295

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83-13, Pennsylvania State University Press, USA (1983).
Sunho Park received his B.S. at Inha
University, Korea, in 2000. He obtained
his M.S. and Ph.D. at Seoul National
University, Korea, in 2002 and 2013,
respectively. He is currently a Professor
in the Department of Ocean Engineering
at Korea Maritime and Ocean Univer-
sity, Korea. His research interests are in
the areas of computational fluid dynamics, multi-phase flow,
and offshore plant engineering.
Shin Hyung Rhee received his B.S. and
M.S from the Department of Naval Ar-
chitecture and Ocean Engineering at
Seoul National University, Korea, in
1990 and 1992, respectively. He ob-
tained his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engi-
neering from University of Iowa, USA,
in 1998. He is currently a Professor in
the Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
at Seoul National University, Korea. His research interests are
in the areas of computational fluid dynamics, towing tank
experiments and multi-phase flow.