Olivier Coutier-Delgosha Personal Page

Modeling of cavitating flows: the objective is to improve the physical models (cavitation, turbulence) involved in CFD of cavitating flows, to account for their unsteady, turbulent and compressible character. Present work focuses on DNS and LES simulations of cavitating flows.

Physical mechanisms of unsteady hydrodynamic cavitation: this activity aims to improve the understanding of the large scale turbulent interactions between liquid and vapor, often by the development of original measurement techniques (recently fast X-ray imaging & LIF PIV).

Cavitating behavior of rotating machinery: this work focuses on cavitation in hydraulic systems and pumps, especially rocket engine turbopumps. I am currently the PI of a 400 k€ project funded by SNECMA, devoted to the analysis the effects of the pump geometry on the flow instabilities due to cavitation, and the investigation of the internal flows in cavitating conditions.

Small-scale mechanisms: These topics are the most recent ones, in the scope of active efforts to include emerging applications of cavitation, associated with hot industrial concerns. Cavitation erosion and heat exchanges during phase changes are investigated in the scope of a NICOP ONR project (2016-19). A study of cavitation induced nano oil/water emulsion has been also initiated.

Environmental flows. Investigation of oil/water mixture behaviors in the scope of oil spilled in ocean or lakes has been initiated in the scope of my 1-year stay in Johns Hopkins University in 2014 as visiting Professor. More generally, oil spill introduces a broad range of problems related to environmental concerns, such as oil flows, mud flows and ground flows