Experimental Study of Pressure and Velocity Fluctuations Induced by Cavitation in a Small Venturi Channel

The purpose of this paper is to investigate experimentally the influence of the cavitation extent on the pressure and velocity fluctuations in a small convergent–divergent channel. The mean cavity length is determined from high-speed photography images. The mean pressure and the intensity of the pressure fluctuations are obtained from the transient pressure signals recorded by two pressure transducers at the inlet and outlet of the test section. The statistical turbulence quantities are derived from the instantaneous velocity fields measured by the laser-induced fluorescent particle image velocimetry (PIV-LIF) technique. The experimental results show that the decrease of the cavitation number (the increase in the extent of cavitation) leads to a rise in the turbulent fluctuations in the wake region due to the impact of vapour clouds collapsing, while the presence of a vapour phase is found to reduce the streamwise and cross-stream velocity fluctuations in the attached cavity. It might be attributed to two mechanisms: the presence of a vapour phase modifies the vortex-stretching process, and the cavitation compressibility damps out the turbulent fluctuations. Similar effects of cavitation are also observed in the pressure fluctuations.