Experimental Study of the Cavitation Effects on Hydrodynamic Behavior of a Circular Cylinder at Different Cavitation Regimes

In this work, we experimentally investigated the cavitation effects on the hydrodynamic behavior of a circular cylinder at different cavitating flows. We analyzed the cavitation dynamics behind the circular cylinder using a high-speed camera and also measured the associated hydrodynamic forces on the circular cylinder using a load cell. We studied the cavitation dynamics around the cylinder at various types of the cavitating regimes such as cloud cavitation, partial cavitation and cavitation inception. In addition, we analyzed the cavitation dynamics at three different Reynolds numbers: 1 × 105, 1.25 × 105 and 1.5 × 105. The results showed that the hydrodynamics force on the circular cylinder can be increased with the formation of the cavitation behind the cylinder compared with the cylinder at cavitation inception regime. The three-dimensional flow caused complex cavitation behavior behind the cylinder and a strong interaction between vortex structures and cavity shedding mechanism. In addition, the results revealed that the effects of the Reynolds number on the cavitation dynamics and amplitude of the shedding frequency is significant. However the effects of the cavitation number on the enhancement of the amplitude of the shedding frequency in the cavitating flow with a constant velocity is slightly higher than the effects of Reynolds number on the enhancement of the amplitude of the shedding frequency at a constant cavitation number.