Simulation of Cavitation during Shock-Droplet Interaction

This study aims to model cavitation that occurs during a shock-droplet interaction using industry-standard cavitation models such as the Schnerr-Sauer model and Rayleigh-Plesset equation available in STAR-CCM+. The underlying motivation for this study is to investigate how cavitation will affect droplet breakup when interacting with strong shock waves from vehicles during reentry. Three Eulerian phases are simulated with air and water vapor being modeled as ideal gases while liquid water is modeled using second-order compressible equations of state. Simulation data is then validated against previous experiments.