Experimental Investigation of Partial Cavitation

Cavitation is a well-known phenomenon, occurring in a wide range of applications. In most applications, cavitation is undesirable, such as turbines, pumps, ship propellers and diesel injector nozzles. Cavitation can cause material erosion, flow blockage, noise and degradation of equipment over time. The ability to predict the behavior of this type of flow will be beneficial to a wide range of systems. One complex form of cavitation is the periodic shedding of cavitation clouds. This thesis experimentally describes the mechanisms which are responsible for the periodic shedding of vapor clouds. A converging-diverging nozzle (venturi) is selected as a canonical geometry for this project. The venturi has the highest contraction ratio, due to its shape, which results in a broader dynamic cavitation range. The venturi gives us the ability to precisely differentiate between different cavitation mechanisms due to their more intense nature.