The influence of surface tension on cavitating flow past a curved obstacle

The classical solution for cavitating flow past a curved obstacle leaves the position of the separation points undetermined. It is shown that this degeneracy is removed by introducing surface tension. A unique solution is obtained by requiring the flow to leave the obstacle tangentially. As the surface tension tends to zero this solution tends to the classical solution satisfying the Brillouin-Villat condition. A perturbation solution for small values of the surface tension is derived. Graphs of the results for the cavitating flow past a circular cylinder are presented.