Cavitating flow characteristics of RP-3 aviation kerosene surrogate mixture models

To study the cavitating flow characteristics of RP-3 aviation kerosene, four kinds of RP-3 aviation kerosene surrogate mixture models were established by GERG-2004 equations, and the main physical properties of these surrogate mixture models were illustrated. The modified saturated vapor pressure and material properties at different temperature were applied in the CFD codes. The dodecane and water cavitating flows in a converging-diverging flow channel were calculated. The surrogate C, which is made up of 45% dodecane, 25% decane, 5% octane, 5% methyl cyclohexane, and 20% toluene (mole fraction), shows better agreement with RP-3 aviation kerosene in certain properties, and then it was considered as RP-3 in cavitating flow computation. The inception cavitation number of aviation kerosene is smaller than that of water at room temperature. The cavity length of water is approximately 1.4 times that of aviation kerosene when cavitation number is 1.5, and the intensity of cavitation is weaker than water under the same conditions and the cavity of aviation kerosene is mushy. As temperature increases, the intensity of thermodynamic effects on aviation kerosene cavitating flow increases, however, it is not notable during the working temperature of aviation kerosene pumps. Thus thermodynamic effects of cavitation could be ignored in the prediction of cavitating flow characteristics of aviation kerosene pumps.