In modern market scenarios, where the competitiveness of an enterprise is determined, beyond the quality of the product, by its time to market, numerical predictions at the component and system level, based on modern CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) technologies, have become a fundamental tool for design purposes.
Unfortunately, relying on commercial CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) tools, due to license costs, the available computing resources cannot, usually, be fully exploited, since in many cases the cost of the license is proportional to the number of processors/cores. In addition, lack of complete access to the source code limits the possibilities in adding and/or modifying models.
Thus, in this paper the prediction strategy, based on a reliable Open Source code and calibrated cavitation models, is evaluated for the simulation of turbulent non-cavitating and cavitating flow around model scale propellers. The turbulent flow is simulated using the RANS approach. The cavitating flow is modelled by the homogeneous flow model, where three different calibrated mass transfer models are used [1-2]. The simulations are carried out using an adapted solver originally taken from OpenFOAM (an Open Source toolbox). As a reference test case two model scale propellers, namely E779A and PPTC, recognized as international benchmarks, are considered.

The proposed strategy is a result of the collaboration between the University of Trieste (Italy) and Turboinštitut d.d. of Ljubljana (Slovenia), recently joined in the ACCUSIM (Accurate Simulations in Hydro-Machinery and Marine Propellers – EU FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IAPP) project which aims  to develop reliable, high fidelity methods for the accurate predictions, and optimization, of the performances of hydro-machinery and marine propellers.

References:

[1] M. Morgut, E. Nobile and I. Biluš, Comparison of mass transfer models for the numerical prediction of sheet cavitation around a hydrofoil, International Journal of Multiphase Flow, vol. 37, no. 6, pp. 620-626, 2011.
[2] M. Morgut and E. Nobile, Numerical predictions of cavitating flow around model scale propellers by CFD and advanced model calibration, International Journal of Rotating Machinery, Article ID 618180, 11 pages, 2012.