The objective of this study is to investigate the collapsing behavior of cavitation, which leads to the erosion of material. An experimental examination was conducted in a channel with a semi-circular cylinder obstacle, which serves as a “vortex cavity” generator. Cavitation was achieved by employing a range of pressure differences over the test section and a high-speed camera was used to observe the cavitation behavior. The flow field behind the semi-circular cylinder was investigated as a characteristic example of bluff bodies that exhibit a distinct, separated vortex flow in their wake. The cases with the bluff body were also compared to the ones without the bluff body. Erosion tests were performed using paint (stencil ink). The intensity of cavitation is characterized by the cavitation number (σ); the lower the cavitation number, the higher the cavitation intensity. The erosion (removal of paint) after 40 min of operation revealed distinct and repeatable results. For a high cavitation number, a large number of von Karman-vortex-like cavities are shed downstream of the obstacle. This results in a higher number of collapse events and, ultimately, more erosion. On the other hand, at lower cavitation numbers, the erosion took place at the cavity's closure line. It was seen that with the increase in cavitation intensity, the erosion area increases. Moreover, the bluff body obstacle promotes and localizes cavitation-induced erosion on the sample plate compared to the cases without the bluff body. This ultimately means that in the cases with the bluff body, less power is required in the system to cause erosion. The erosion patterns caused by the bluff body cavitation are more repeatable compared to the cases without the bluff body due to the localized cavitation load. The erosion pattern from the paint test is also compared with a material loss test (30 h of operation). A very good qualitative agreement is found between the two tests, with the paint test requiring approximately two orders of magnitude less running time of the facility. We demonstrate that paint tests, combined with this geometry, provide an efficient and economical way to investigate erosion patterns compared to expensive material loss tests.

In this paper, the cavitating flow around a bluff body is studied both experimentally and numerically. The bluff body has a finite length with semi-circular cross section and is mounted on a surface in the throat of a converging-diverging channel. This set-up creates various 3D flow structures around the body, from cavitation inception to super cavities, at high Reynolds numbers (Re=5.6×10⁴−2.2×10⁵) and low cavitation numbers (σ=0.56−1.69). Earlier studies have shown this flow to be erosive and the erosion pattern varies by changing the flow rate and w/o the cylinder; hence, this study is an attempt to understand different features of the cavitating flow due to the cylinder effect. In the experiments, high-speed imaging is used. Two of the test cases are investigated in more detail through numerical simulations using a homogeneous mixture model. Non-cavitating simulations have also been performed to study the effect of cavitation on the flow field. Based on the observed results, vortex shedding can have different patterns in cavitating flows. While at higher cavitation numbers the vortices are shed in a cyclic pattern, at very low cavitation numbers large fixed cavities are formed in the wake area. For mid-range cavitation numbers a transitional regime is seen in the shedding process. In addition, the vapour structures have a small effect on the flow behaviour for high cavitation numbers, while at lower cavitation numbers they have significant influence on the exerted forces on the bluff body as well as vortical structures and shedding mechanisms. Besides, at very low cavitation numbers, a reverse flow is observed that moves upstream and causes the detachment of the whole cavity from the cylinder. Such a disturbance is not seen in non-cavitating flows.

The objective of this study is to investigate the collapsing behavior of cavitation, which leads to erosion. For this purpose, an experimental investigation was performed in a channel with a semi-circular cylinder obstacle at the Hydraulic Laboratory of ANDRITZ HYDRO in Vevey. Cavitation was achieved by employing a range of pressure differences over the test section. The obstacle promotes and localizes cavitation-induced erosion. The flow field behind the semi-circular cylinder was investigated as a characteristic example of bluff bodies, which exhibit a distinct separated vortex flow in their wake. A high-speed camera observed the cavitation behavior. At the same time, erosion tests were performed using paint (stencil ink). The intensity of cavitation is described by the cavitation number (σ), the lower the cavitation number, the higher the cavitation intensity. Three erosive cases at different cavitation numbers are presented here. The erosion (removal of paint) after 40-60 mins of operation revealed distinct and repeatable results. These results will serve as validation data for numerical studies. For a high cavitation number, a large number of Karman-vortex-like cavities are shed downstream of the obstacle. This results in a higher number of collapse events and ultimately more erosion. On the other hand, at lower cavitation numbers the erosion took place at the closure line of the cavity. We demonstrate that paint tests in combination with this geometry provide an efficient and economical way to investigate erosion patterns compared to expensive material loss tests.