A method for predicting
cavitation intensity within the runner of a large-scale hydro-
turbine unit includes the following steps: simplifying the gas-liquid two-phase flow within the entire runner channel under typical operating conditions; extracting a complete three-dimensional geometric model of the runner channel, generating a computational mesh, and verifying mesh independence; configuring the
solver and computational mode, enabling the multiphase flow model and the turbulence model, and setting boundary conditions, flow field initialization methods, and computational convergence criteria; extracting
impurity parameters and arranging discrete phase particles representing impurities in the water; simulating the movement of particles within the runner channel using the discrete
phase model to obtain the particle distribution and
mass concentration within the channel; calculating the
partial pressure of insoluble gases to quantitatively characterize the influence of
water quality; calculating the corrected
vaporization pressure; obtaining the
cavitation occurrence location within the channel and quantitatively evaluating the
cavitation intensity; and comparing the cavitation intensity prediction results considering and not considering
water quality. This application can improve the prediction accuracy of hydro-
turbine cavitation intensity.