Impingement capability of high-pressure submerged water jet: Numerical prediction and experimental verification

At jet pressures ranging from 80 to 120 MPa, submerged water jets are investigated by numerical simulation and experiment. Numerical simulation enables a systematic analysis of major flow parameters such as jet velocity, turbulent kinetic energy as well as void fraction of cavitation. Experiments facilitate an objective assessment of surface morphology, micro hardness and surface roughness of the impinged samples. A comparison is implemented between submerged and non-submerged water jets. The results show that submerged water jet is characterized by low velocity magnitudes relative to non-submerged water jet at the same jet pressure. Shear effect serves as a key factor underlying the inception of cavitation in submerged water jet stream. Predicted annular shape of cavity zone is substantiated by local height distributions associated with experimentally obtained footprints. As jet pressure increases, joint contribution of jet kinetic energy and cavitation is demonstrated. While for non-submerged water jet, impingement force stems exclusively from flow velocity.

Investigation of hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene propellant breaking characteristics and mechanism impacted by submerged cavitation water jet

A submerged cavitation water jet(SCWJ)is an effective method to recycle solid propellant from obsolete solid engines by the breaking method.Solid propellant's breaking modes and mechanical process under SCWJ impact are unclear.This study aims to understand those impact breaking mechanisms.The hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene(HTPB)propellant was chosen as the research material,and a self-designed test system was used to conduct impact tests at four different working pressures.The high-speed camera characterized crack propagation,and the DIC method calculated strain change during the impact process.Besides,micro and macro fracture morphologies were characterized by scanning electron microscope(SEM)and computed tomography(CT)scanning.The results reveal that the compressive strain concentration region locates right below the nozzle,and the shear strain region distributes symmetrically with the jet axis,which increases to 4% at first 16th ms,the compressive strain rises to 2% and 6% in the axial and transverse direction,respectively.The two tensile cracks formed first at the compression strain concentrate region,and there generate many shear cracks around the tensile cracks,and those shear cracks that develop and aggregate cause the cracks to become wider and cut through the tensile cracks,forming the tensile-shear cracks and the impact parts eventually fail.The HTPB propellant forms a breaking hole shaped conical after impact 10 s.The mass loss increases by 17 times at maximum,with the working pressure increasing by three times.Meanwhile,the damage value of the breaking hole remaining on the surface increases by 7.8 times while 2.9 times in the depth of the breaking hole.The breaking efficiency is closely affected by working pressures.The failure modes of HTPB impacted by SCWJ are classified as tensile crack-dominated and tensile-shear crack-dominated damage mechanisms.

Numerical analysis of cavitation cloud shedding in a submerged water jet

Focused on the unsteady behavior of high-speed water jets with intensive cavitation a numerical analysis is performed by applying a practical compressible mixture flow bubble cavitation model with a simplified estimation of bubble radius. The mean flow of two-phase mixture is calculated by unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes （URANS） for compressible flow and the intensity of cavitation in a local field is evaluated by the volume fraction of gas bubbles whose radius is estimated with a simplified Rayleigh- Plesset equation according to pressure variation of the mean flow field. High-speed submerged water jet issuing from a sheathed sharp-edge orifice nozzle is treated. The periodically shedding of cavitation clouds is captured in a certain reliability compared to experiment data of visualization observation and the capability to capture the unsteadily shedding of cavitation clouds is demonstrated. The results demonstrate that cavitation takes place near the entrance of nozzle throat and cavitation cloud expands consequentially while flowing downstream. Developed bubble clouds break up near the nozzle exit and shed downstream periodically along the shear layer. Under the effect of cavitation bubbles the decay of core velocity is delayed compared to the case of no-cavitation jet.