An Experimental Study of Unsteady Partial Cavitation

Unsteady partial cavitation can cause damage to hydraulic machinery and understanding it requires knowledge of the basic physics involved. This paper presents the main results of a research program based on wall-pressure measurements aimed at studying unsteadiness in partial cavitation. Several features have been pointed out. For cavity lengths that did not exceed half the foil chord the cavity was stated to be stable. At the cavity closure a peak of pressure fluctuations was recorded originating from local cavity unsteadiness in the closure region at a frequency depending on the cavity length. Conversely, cavities larger than half the foil chord were stated to be unstable. They were characterized by a cavity growth/destabilization cycle settled at a frequency lower than the previous ones. During cavity growth, the closure region fluctuated more and pressure fluctuations traveling in the cavity wake were detected. When the cavity was half the foil chord, cavity growth was slowed down and counterbalanced by large vapor cloud shedding. When the cavity length was maximum (l/c∼0.7–0.8), it was strongly destabilized. The reason for such destabilization is discussed at the end of the paper. It is widely believed that the cavity instability originates from a process involving the shedding of vapor clouds during cavity growth, a re-entrant jet, and a shock wave phenomenon due to the collapse of a large cloud cavitation.