Experiments and modelling of cavitating flows in Venturi. Part I: stable cavitation

Correlated experimental and numerical studies were carried out to analyse cavitating flows in Venturi geometries. New double optical probe measurements were performed and special data processing methods were developed to estimate void ratio and velocity fields for cold water flows. By applying a computational method previously developed in Laboratory LEGI based on the code Fine TM /Turbo and on a barotropic approach (Delannoy and Kueny, 1990), several steady calculations were performed in cold water cavitating flows. Local and global analyses were proposed based on comparisons between experimental and numerical results. The physical and numerical models were improved to take into account thermodynamic effects in cavitation phenomenon. A first application of the model is carried out for a Venturi geometry in the case of R114 flows. Numerical results were compared to experimental ones obtained previously by (Fruman et al., 1999)