A study on the effects of fluctuations of the supercavity parameters

Abstract

Several experiments were conducted to examine the dynamics and vibrations of ventilated cavities. More than 100 test runs were performed. A water tunnel test and a vibrational setup were provided to examine the oscillations effects of the cavity’s parameters. The tests were performed on the wedge cavitator model at speeds of up to 6m/s with different ventilation rates. The range of cavitation number in this study was 0.135<σ<0.18. The natural frequencies of the vibrational setup had to be tunable in order to identify the dynamic behavior of the cavity. Pressure sensors were used to determine the cavity’s condition. It was shown that the designed vibrational setup was useful for determining the dynamic characteristics of the cavity. The tests also confirmed that the dominant harmonic frequency of the cavity was correlated with the length of the cavity and the cavitation number.