Numerical investigation of the hydroelastic response in cavitating flow around a flexible hydrofoil

The objective of this paper is to investigate the hydroelastic response of cavitating flows around a flexible hydrofoil. The numerical simulations are performed by solving the incompressible and unsteady Reynolds Average Navier-Stokes (URANS) equations via the commercial CFD software ANSYS CFX. The k-ω SST turbulence model with the turbulence viscosity correction and the Kubota cavitation model are introduced to the present simulations. The results showed that the cavitation has significantly affected the foil deformation and the evolution of the transient cavity shape and the corresponding hydrodynamic response with time can be divided into three stages: during the development of the attached cavity, the cavity formed on the suction side of the flexible hydrofoil is much larger with a steeper slope of the cavity area, which is caused by the increase of the effective angle of attack due to the twist deformation. During the vortex-cavitation interaction process, the hydrodynamic loads for the rigid hydrofoil remain relatively flat, while that for the flexible hydrofoil fluctuates with high frequency because of the foil deformation, leading to a more complex cavitation pattern due to the interaction with the foil vibration. During the cavity shedding process, both the primary and the residual cavities shed downstream totally, together with the counter-rotational vortex structures, corresponding to a sharp drop in the hydrodynamic loads. The larger effective angle of attack leads to the advanced cavity inception of the next cavitation period.