Simulation of Cavitation Erosion in a Hydraulic Valve

This paper presents a numerical simulation of cavitation of a non-return hydraulic valve. Cavitation is one of the most common reasons of hydraulic system failures or malfunctioning. Due to complex geometry and flow path which may rapidly change, hydraulic valves are exposed to a cavitation phenomenon. Additionally, hydraulic fluid always includes contaminants including dissolver air, which may accelerate nucleation formation. Despite the fact that cavitation is not a fully discovered phenomenon, an attempt of simulation of cavitation process was taken using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools.