A 2-phase flow model for the diffused cavitation study

A mathematical model of two phase flow was used to analyze diffused cavitation phenomena, and a Lax-Wendroff method to solve the model equations was defined, for water column separation studies. Stability and damping characteristics of the Lax-Wendroff method prove to be strongly dependent on the discretization scheme adopted on the boundary; the semiimplicit scheme fulfills requirements for single-phase flow. The method is also acceptable for two phase flow analysis, despite the presence of spurious oscillations due to the coexistence of zones (liquid and two phase) with very different Courant number values. The model is adequate for single-phase flow and two phase flow, and may be able to treat diffused cavitation better than the separated-phase model, though lack of experimental results excludes quantitative analysis.