CAVITATION DYNAMICS AND

VISUALIZATION
(Ref: Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics)
SCOPE
• INTRODUCTION

• CAVITATION DAMAGE

• CAVITATION DYNAMICS

• FLOW VISUALIZATION OF CAVITATION

• CONCLUSIONS
INTRODUCTION
• Cavitation - Formation and subsequent collapse of
vapor bubbles in a flowing liquid

Source: Ref 1
Cavitation in the tip vortices of a propeller

• Cavitation can be utilized for specific applications

CAVITATION DAMAGE
• Collapse of vapor bubbles leads to erosion of the hardware.
• Performance adversely affected

Source: Ref 1 Source: Ref 2

Cavitation damage in the spillway tunnel Cavitation damage in an
of the Yellowtail Dam in Montana agricultural pump impeller
CAVITATION DYNAMICS
Cavitation index   Critical Cavitation number

Critical cavitation is not completely dependent on the cavitation index.

Cavitation inception characteristics of a NACA 4412 hydrofoil (Reproduced from [1])

Experiments are inevitable to understand the phenomena of cavitation.
FLOW VISUALIZATION OF CAVITATION
• Bubbles form and collapse at high rates.

• Need to film with a high-speed movie camera.

• Time resolved observation require 10,000 fps

• Clarity can be improved with backlighting.

• Collapse of vapor bubbles near solid surface studied by Thoroddsen et. al.

• As cavitation bubbles collapse close to a wall, they generate high-speed

jets that penetrate through the bubble toward the solid surface.
FLOW VISUALIZATION OF CAVITATION
• Frame rates up to 100Mfps used

The collapse of the bubble produces a jet directed toward the wall, impacting the wall and generating a
toroidal bubble. The width of each frame is 1.68 mm and dt = 1 μs. [6]
FLOW VISUALIZATION OF CAVITATION
• PLIF technique reported to be used for quantitative measurements.

Lase Unit Setup Visualization of cavitating flow in nozzle with

sharp inlet using PLIF [4]
CONCLUSIONS
• Cavitation has been studied over the years both numerically and
experimentally.

• Experiments still are essential to understand the phenomena of cavitation.

• High speed imaging techniques are most suitable.

• Laser diagnostic techniques such as PLIF can be used for quantitative

measurements.
REFERENCES
1. R E A Arndt. 1981. Cavitation in Fluid Machinery and Hydraulic Structures. Annual Review of
Fluid Mechanics. 13:1, 273-326
2. J R Blake, and D C Gibson. 1987. Cavitation Bubbles Near Boundaries. Annual Review of
Fluid Mechanics. 19:1, 99-123
3. M S Plesset, and A Prosperetti. 1977. Bubble Dynamics and Cavitation. Annual Review of
Fluid Mechanics. 9:1, 145-185
4. S.T. Thoroddsen, T.G. Etoh, K. Takehara. 2008. High-Speed Imaging of Drops and Bubbles.
Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics. 40:1, 257-285
5. Wilms J. 2013. Thesis: Flow Visualisation of Cavitation. Kansas States University. Kansas
6. Lindau O, Lauterborn W. 2003. Cinematographic observation of the collapse and rebound of
a laser-produced cavitation bubble near a wall. J. Fluid Mech. 479:327–48
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