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Viscous potential flow analysis of stress-induced cavitation in an aperture flow

T. Funada,* J. Wang† and D. D. Joseph†‡

*Department of Digital Engineering, Numazu College of Technology, 3600 Ooka, Numazu, Shizuoka, 410-8501, Japan
†Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics, University of Minnesota, 110 Union St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA

(Issue 7, 2006)

Abstract

Cavitation in an aperture flow in a flat plate is studied using viscous potential flow. The maximum tension criterion for cavitation used here was proposed by Joseph 1995, 1998: “Liquids at atmospheric pressure which cannot withstand tension will cavitate when and where tensile stresses due to motion exceed one atmosphere. A cavity will open in the direction of the maximum tensile stress which is 45o from the plane of shearing in pure shear of a Newtonian fluid.” The aperture flow is expressed using a complex potential and the stress is calculated using viscous potential flow. We find that the viscous stress is huge near the tips of the aperture, thus cavitation could be induced.