Measurements of the shedding frequency and spacing of cavitating vortex street wakes have been made for four wedge models having apex angles of 15, 30, 60, and 90 deg. The wake pattern made visible by the presence of cavitation bubbles enabled measurements of the shedding frequency and vortex street spacing to be taken. It was found that the cavitation produced negligible effects on the shedding frequency with decreasing cavitation number down to as low as half the incipient cavitation number. Further decrease in the cavitation number produced an increase in the shedding frequency to a maximum value followed by a decrease with a general decay to random shedding. The analysis of high-speed motion pictures demonstrated a general decrease in the cross-stream spacing of the two rows of vortices with decreasing cavitation number. The longitudinal spacing of vortices in the same row also decreased with decreasing cavitation number followed by a rapid increase at cavitation numbers lower than that producing the peak frequency. In a simplified analysis, it was hypothesized that the cavitation in the vortex cores caused a general sink effect in the shed wake. Modeling the cavitation with cylindrical cavitation bubbles, some agreement with the experimental results was obtained for the cross-stream spacing with decreasing cavitation number.

The results of an investigation of thermodynamic effects are presented. Distributions of temperature and pressure in a developed cavity were measured for zero- and quarter-caliber ogives. A semiempirical entrainment theory was developed to correlate the measured temperature depression, ΔT, in the cavity. This theory correlates ΔTmax expressed in dimensionless form as the Jakob number in terms of the dimensionless numbers of Nusselt, Reynolds, Froude, and Pe´cle´t, and dimensionless cavity length, L/D. The results show that in general ΔT increases with L/D and temperature and the cavitation number based on measured cavity pressure is a function of L/D for a given model contour, independent of the thermodynamic effect.

Traveling-bubble cavitation inception tests were conducted in a 30.48 cm water tunnel with a Schiebe headform. A computer code was developed to statistically model cavitation inception on a Schiebe headform, consisting of a numerical solution to the Rayleigh-Plesset equation coupled to a set of trajectory equations. Using this code, trajectories and growths were computed for bubbles of varying initial sizes. An initial off-body distance was specified and the bubble was free to follow an offbody trajectory. A Monte Carlo cavitation simulation was performed in which a variety of random processes were modeled. Three different nuclei distributions were specified including one similar to that measured in the water tunnel experiment. The results compared favorably to the experiment. Cavitation inception was shown to be sensitive to nuclei distribution. Off-body effect was also found to be a significant factor in determining whether or not a bubble would cavitate. The effect of offbody trajectories on the critical bubble diameter was examined. The traditional definition of critical diameter based on the minimum pressure coefficient of the body or the measurement of liquid tension was found to be inadequate in defining cavitation inception. 10 12 14 16 Water Speed (m/sec) Fig. 1 Cavitation inception results on ITTC standard headform from various facilities (from Lindgren and Johnson, 1966)

Scale effects on cavitation are defined here as departures from the classical similarity relations when changing size, velocity, and/or properties of the fluid. The various phenomena governing such scale effects are examined and the resulting similarity laws, together with some expected scale effects, are tabulated. The theoretical expectations are then compared with extensive test data on desinent cavitation in cold water. This comparison leads to two different sets of plausible relationships for cavitation attached to a streamlined body, and cavitation not attached to a solid wall. However, the conclusions drawn are only tentative and qualitative, clearly indicating the need of further careful experimentation and analysis.