Cavitating Flow in Circular and Elliptical Nozzles

The purpose of this study was to investigate the internal nozzle flow and cavitation characteristics numerically in both circular and elliptical nozzles. The program FLUENT 6.2 was used to perform the numerical simulation of the cavitating flow in the nozzles. A comparison was made between the cavitation shapes predicted numerically and those found experimentally in order to validate the numerical solution. This study showed that the cavitation in the circular nozzle had a cylindrical shape that was symmetrical with the nozzle axis. However, the cavitation in the elliptical nozzles had a horseshoe-like shape. In addition, the radial velocity distribution varied between the major and the minor axis planes when the working fluid was flowing into the inlet.