LES STOCHASTIC

MODELLING OF
CAVITATION
WITH ITS APPLICATIONS IN OPENFOAM

BOXIONG CHEN
PHYSICS INVOLVED IN A BUBBLE

From https://www.mn.uio.no/ifi/english/people/aca/fabrice/cavitation/
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CONTENTS
• Introduction to cavitation and its challenges
• Single volume fraction cavitation model
• Eulerian Stochastic Field (ESF) model
• OpenFOAM and model implementation
• Results
• Outlook

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 INTRODUCTION TO CAVITATION
• Cavitation is …
• the vaporization of a liquid due
to low local PRESSURE

• Commonly seen in injector

nozzles and turbomachinery

Top-right picture: Hult et al., Experiments in Fluids, 2016

Bottom-right picture: https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/363484/view/propeller-cavitation

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INTRODUCTION TO CAVITATION

From Sou et al., Int. J. of Heat and Mass Transfer, 2007

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INTRODUCTION TO CAVITATION
Challenges in cavitation experiments
• Experimentally difficult to obtain images with high
enough resolution and high frequencies for
quantitative measurements

• Hard to access quantitative information

- important for model validation

• For detailed insights have to resort to simulations

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CAVITATION MODELING (NOT COMPLETE)

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SINGLE VOLUME FRACTION MODEL
1
• Volume fraction: 𝛼𝑙 = ,
1+𝑛∙4𝜋𝑅 3 /3
n = number density, [n] = 1/volume, R = radius of bubbles
• Through number density n, there’s a one-to-one correspondence
between radius R and the volume fraction 𝛼𝑙
• With fixed n, modelling of 𝛼𝑙 boils down to modelling of the single

bubble radius R
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SINGLE VOLUME FRACTION MODEL
Volume fraction equation

𝑑𝛼𝑙 𝑅
𝛼𝑙 + 𝑢 ∙ 𝛻𝛼𝑙 = = −3𝛼𝑙 (1 − 𝛼𝑙 )
𝑑𝑡 𝑅

2 𝑝(𝑅)−𝑝
𝑅 can be closed by Schnerr & Sauer model: 𝑅 =
3 𝜌𝑙

Pressure difference will be the only mechanism considered for

expansion and shrinkage of bubbles

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SCIENTIFIC GOAL
• Single volume fraction cavitation models solve only one bubble
radius per CFD cell
• Real cavitating flow has a continuous range of bubble sizes
• Turbulence leads to stochastic fluctuations of the bubble size
distribution
We aim for a method resolving locally a time-dependent bubble
size distribution in turbulent flow using LES turbulence modeling

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PDF EQUATION OF VOLUME FRACTION
PDF equation of liquid volume fraction
𝜕𝑃𝛼 𝜕𝑃𝛼 𝜕 𝜕𝑃𝛼 𝜕
+ 𝑈𝑖 − 𝐷′ =− 𝑆 𝜙 𝑃𝛼
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥𝑖 𝜕𝑥𝑖 𝜕𝑥𝑖 𝜕𝜙

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LARGE EDDY SIMULATION (LES)
Large Eddy Simulation (LES) framework

𝜕
𝜌𝑢 + 𝛻 ∙ 𝜌𝑢 𝑢 = 𝛻 ∙ 𝜇 + 𝜇𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑏 𝛻𝑢 − 𝛻 𝑝
𝜕𝑡
Smagorinsky sub-grid turbulent viscosity model:

1 𝜕𝑢𝑖 𝜕𝑢𝑗
𝜈𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑏 = (𝐶𝑠 Δ𝑔 )2 2𝑆𝑖𝑗 𝑆𝑖𝑗 , where 𝑆𝑖𝑗 = ( + )
2 𝜕𝑥𝑗 𝜕𝑥𝑖

We assume 𝐷 ′ = 𝜈𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑏

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SOLUTION METHODS FOR PDF TRANSPORT EQUATIONS

• Direct solution
• Very expensive due to high dimensional PDE

• Lagrangian particle methods

• Low computational efficiency in parallel cases

• Eulerian Stochastic Field (ESF) method

• Multiple Eulerian fields to represent PDF (Valinos, Turb. and Comb.,
1998, Dumond et al., Physics and Fluid, 2013)
• Easy parallelization via domain decomposition

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ESF METHOD

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ESF METHOD

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ESF METHOD
• Wiener process (a.k.a. Brownian Motion process)
𝑑𝑊 = 𝜖 𝑑𝑡, 𝜖~𝑁 0,1

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ESF METHOD
By standard stochastic derivation, an equation for single
realization can be obtained from the PDF equation of liquid
volume fraction

𝜕𝛼 𝑛 𝜕 𝜕𝛼 𝑛
𝜕𝛼 𝑛
d𝛼 𝑛 = −𝑈𝑖 + 𝐷′ + 𝑆(𝛼 𝑛 ) d𝑡 + 2𝐷′ d𝑊𝑖𝑛
𝜕𝑥𝑖 𝜕𝑥𝑖 𝜕𝑥𝑖 𝜕𝑥𝑖

• The red term represents the difference of a Wiener process

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ESF METHOD – INTEGRATION SCHEMES
The integration calls for special numerical schemes
• To accumulate the random walk, classical numerical
integration schemes (e.g. Runge-Kutta) won’t do that
correctly
Two stochastic integration schemes were tested
• 1st order Euler-Maruyama method
• 2nd order Stochastic Runge-Kutta method

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STOCHASTIC INTEGRATION SCHEMES
Euler-Maruyama scheme (simplest extension of first-order Euler scheme)
• Stochastic differential equation (SDE)
d𝜙 𝑡 = 𝑎 𝜙, 𝑡 d𝑡 + 𝑏 𝜙, 𝑡 d𝑊 𝑡 ,
where function a, b are arbitrary
• Euler-Maruyama approximation to the true solution 𝝓:
𝑌0 = 𝜙0
𝑌𝑛+1 = 𝑌𝑛 + 𝑎 𝑌𝑛 Δ𝑡 + 𝑏(𝑌𝑛 )Δ𝑊𝑛 , where Δ𝑊𝑛 = 𝑊𝑛+1 − 𝑊𝑛
• Simple but low accuracy (1st order in the weak sense)

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STOCHASTIC INTEGRATION SCHEMES
2nd order Stochastic Runge-Kutta scheme:
𝑌0 = 𝜙0
1 1
𝑌𝑛+1 = 𝑌𝑛 + 𝑎Δ𝑡 + 𝑎 𝑡𝑛 + Δ𝑡, 𝑌𝑛 + 𝑎Δ𝑡 + 𝑏Δ𝑊𝑛 + 𝑏Δ𝑊𝑛
2 2

• If we set 𝑏 = 0, SRK2 degrades to

1 1
𝑌𝑛+1 = 𝑌𝑛 + 𝑎Δ𝑡 + 𝑎 𝑡𝑛 + Δ𝑡, 𝑌𝑛 + 𝑎Δ𝑡 (Heun’s method)
2 2

• Second order accuracy in the weak sense.

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IMPLEMENTATION IN OPENFOAM
Open source Field Operation And Manipulation (OpenFOAM)
• No license fee (important in parallel computations)
• Excellent extendibility, well-structured, advanced features of C++
Base solver: interPhaseChangeFoam
• An isothermal Eulerian two phase solver based on homogeneous
equilibrium model (HEM) with Schnerr&Saur model
Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE) module extension
• ODE solving module modified for stochastic Runge-Kutta integration
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APPLICATIONS, TEST CASES, RESULTS
• Transparent two nozzle diesel marine injector
• Throttle geometry
• One nozzle geometry
• ECN spray G/G2

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TWO NOZZLE DIESEL MARINE INJECTOR
• Corresponds to an experimental
campaign CaPS
• 45 bar injection pressure
• 5 bar back pression
• n-dodecane

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 TWO-NOZZLE GEOMETRY

The experimental image and video are taken from

Hult et al.,Experiments in Fluids, 2016

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THROTTLE GEOMETRY
3-D Throttle geometry, first studied in Winklhofer et al.
ILASS-Europe, 2001, fluid dynamics features discussed extensively in
Altimira and Fuchs, Int. J. Multiphase Flow, 2015

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THROTTLE GEOMETRY

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SINGLE NOZZLE GEOMETRY
• A single nozzle geometry
• Diesel fuel, 390 bar inlet
pressure, 1 bar back pressure
• Supercavitation seen in both
experimental and simulation
result
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SINGLE NOZZLE GEOMETRY

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SINGLE NOZZLE GEOMETRY
Time evolution of PDF of vapor bubble radii at P1

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ECN SPRAY G2/G
• 8-hole GDI injector, size parameters defined by Engine
Combustion Network (ECN)

Picture taken from Baldwin et al., Int. J. of Multiphase Flow, 2016

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ECN SPRAY G2/G
• Inside the injector, cavitation or boiling?
• Colombet et al. (Int. J. of Heat and Mass Transfer,
2017) derived analytic formulas for the timescales of
thermal vs. inertia driven bubble growth
• For the ECN G2 conditions we have 𝜏𝑟𝑒𝑠 ≪ 𝜏𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑙
inside the injector
-> Cavitation regime! Thermal growth irrelevant!
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ECN SPRAY G2/G

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VELOCITY PROFILE COMPARISON

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CONCLUSIONS
• A Eulerian Stochastic Field model is developed and
implemented in OpenFOAM
• The simulation results were compared quantitatively
with that of a single volume fraction solver, and
qualitatively with experimental images for some
geometries
• The method generates PDF of volume fraction, is
relatively robust, although further development would
make it applicable more widely
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OUTLOOK
• Further simulations on realistic injectors and code
extensions catering complex geometries.
• Studies on the fundamental characteristics of the ESF
method
• Further modelling of number density n could be an
interesting direction for the following project
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

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APPENDIX: ESF METHOD
𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑢 𝜕2 𝑢 𝜕𝑊
Numerical Test: + 𝑣 − 𝜈 2 =𝜎 ,
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑥
Where 𝑥 ∈ 0,1 , convection 𝑣 = 0.6, diffusion 𝜈 = 0.005, 𝜎 = 2.5,
with the initial condition

(𝑥−0.2)2
𝑢 0, 𝑥 = exp(− ),
𝜈
and boundary conditions

1 (−0.2−𝑣𝑡)2 1 −0.8−𝑣𝑡 2
𝑢 𝑡, 0 =
4𝑡+1
exp(−
𝜈(4𝑡+1)
), 𝑢 𝑡, 1 =
4𝑡+1
exp −
𝜈 4𝑡+1
.
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APPENDIX: ESF METHOD
• The problem has an analytical solution of the expectation of u:

1 (𝑥−0.2−𝑣𝑡)2
𝑢 𝑡, 𝑥 = exp(− ).
4𝑡+1 𝜈(4𝑡+1)

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