Investigation of the effects of domain representation and boundary condition selection in numerical simulations of micro scale flows with phase change

Cavitation is a research area of high industrial interest due to the significant role it plays in the droplet formation and spray breakup in various processes such as flows in micro channels, microsensors and fuel injectors. In the current work we explore the predictive capabilities of a numerical framework within Large Eddy Simulation context when Diesel is used as working fluid and is injected at various pressures through a micro-channel. Results in terms of void fraction, velocity and pressure are compared with the experimental data of Winklhofer. Our focus is cavitation within the channel as well as in the downstream jet. Moreover, since cavitation is a phenomenon affected considerably by the underlying pressure waves that occur on similar time and length scales as the bubble dynamics, the sensitivity of the predictions to the downstream domain and boundary representation will be addressed.