Measurements in High Void-Fraction Bubbly Wakes Created by Ventilated Supercavitation

A detailed study of ventilated supercavitation in the reentrant jet regime is being carried out in the high-speed water tunnel at St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, as the hydrodynamics part of an interdisciplinary study on stability and control of high-speed cavity-running bodies. It is aimed at understanding the interaction between a ventilated supercavity and its turbulent bubbly wake, with the goal to provide the information needed for the development of control algorithms. Here Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) measurements in high void fraction bubbly wakes created by the collapse of ventilated supercavities are reported. Bubble velocity fields are obtained, and shown to submit to the same high Reynolds number similarity scaling as the single-phase turbulent axisymmetric wake. A grayscale technique to measure local average void fraction is outlined. Initial results of a time-resolved PIV experiment (2000 Hz) are also presented.