A comparative study of quasi-stable sheet cavities at different stages based on fast synchrotron x-ray imaging

Abstract

The cavitating flows in a small convergent–divergent channel are studied experimentally using a fast synchrotron x-ray imaging method that enables simultaneous acquisition of the velocity and void fraction fields as well as the two-phase morphology inside the opaque cavitation areas. According to the x-ray measurement results, the quasi-stable sheet cavitation is classified into three representative stages based on the status of the re-entrant flow: (i) at the early stage, the incipient cavity is short and no reverse flow is observed, (ii) at the intermediate stage, an intermittent re-entrant flow is identified underneath the sheet cavity, and (iii) at the developed stage, the re-entrant flow becomes continuous and it can penetrate the entire sheet cavity. The comparison of the three typical sheet cavities illustrates that the occurrence of the re-entrant flow does not result in the transition of sheet-to-cloud cavitation, but it influences the distribution of the mean void fraction and the spectrum of the void fraction variation. The development of cavitation also influences the turbulent velocity fluctuations. On one hand, cavitation alters mean velocity field, which affects velocity fluctuations due to the positive correlation between the velocity gradient and turbulence intensity. One the other hand, the presence of vapor/liquid mixture is observed to greatly suppress velocity fluctuations. The collapse of small vapor structures does not cause an evident augmentation of streamwise velocity fluctuations but increases the shear stress significantly.