Modeling of Cavitation in Pipelines

In the paper a model of liquid-gas mixture flow in pipelines is presented. The result enables simulation of transient and cavitation phenomena so it provides a tool for prediction and prevention of pollution due to damages on pipelines as well as an environmentally improved pipeline design. Particularly an application to a pipeline Plase-Opatija in the coastal zone is presented in the paper. The applied methods are mathematical and numerical. The mathematical model consists of an initial-boundary value problem for a hyperbolic conservation law system, which is derived from the Kraneneburg's model for gas-liquid mixture flow in pipes. These hyperbolic conservation laws together with boundary conditions are then numerically solved using the essentially non-oscillatory schemes developed by Shu, Osher et al. The proposed cavitation model is tested on the Kranenburg's test example. The test shows excellent characteristics of the model, in fact it is superior to Kranenburg's numerical results. The model is applied to a real pipeline in order to predict cavitation phenomenon and improve pipeline change design.