Simulation and Modeling of Cavitation Inception in turbulent water jets

Turbulent jets are a fundamental flow configuration in numerous engineering applications, but the onset of cavitation within them presents significant challenges due to unsteady, multi-scale turbulence. The accurate prediction of localized pressure minima that triggers cavitation is markedly difficult, as the process is influenced by complex vortex dynamics, stochastic nuclei distribution, and scale effects. This study performs LES of cavitation inception in turbulent jets using a recently developed cavitation inception subgrid model. We investigate the flow field, turbulence statistics, and cavitation inception across several nozzle geometries and flow conditions. We find that the model successfully predicts cavitation inception even on coarse grids where the pressure minima are not resolved on the computational grid. The predicted cavitation inception pressure and its location are compared to experimental data.