Influence of the heat transfer model on the estimation of mass transfer

Maria Giovanna Rodio (1) , Pietro Marco Congedo (1)

1 BACCHUS - Parallel tools for Numerical Algorithms and Resolution of essentially Hyperbolic problems

The efficient design and performance of turbopumps in rocket propulsion systems demands a robust numerical tool predicting the phenomenon of cavitation in cryogenic fluids. Building robust models for this complex physics, according to a not-large set of experimental data, is very challenging. In fact, cryogenic fluids are thermo-sensitive, and therefore, thermal effects and strong variations in fluid properties can alter the cavitation properties. This work illustrates how thermal effects can be estimated considering both convective and conductive heat transfer. The Rayleigh-Plesset (RP) equation is coupled with a bubbly flow model to assess the prediction of thermal effects, and used in order to simulate some reference experimental test-cases in literature. Moreover, some tuning parameters, not measured experimentally, such as initial volume vapor phase α0 and initial radius bubbles R0 and the specific coefficient of the heat transfer models are treated like epistemic uncertainties in a probabilistic framework, permitting to obtain numerical error bars for some quantities of interest, and then to perform a robust analysis of the thermal effect.

Domaines: Dynamique des Fluides [physics.flu-dyn]

Maria Giovanna Rodio, Pietro Marco Congedo. Influence of the heat transfer model on the estimation of mass transfer. [Research Report] RR-8438, INRIA. 2013. ⟨hal-00922784⟩