An experimental investigation of transient cavitation control on a hydrofoil using hemispherical vortex generators

Unsteady cavitation causes noise, damage, and performance decline in the marine engineering and fluid machinery systems. Therefore, finding a method to control the cavitation and its destructive effects is important for the industrial applications. In this work, we proposed a passive method to control the unsteady behavior of transient cavitation at the medium Reynolds number. For this aim, we performed an experimental study using a high-speed camera to analyze the effects of hemispherical vortex generators (VGs) on the cavitation dynamics around a hydrofoil surface. In addition, the pressure pulsations induced by the collapse of the cavity structures in the wake region of the hydrofoil were captured with a pressure transducer mounted on the wall downstream of the hydrofoil. The results showed that the instability behaviors of the cavity structures on the hydrofoil were mitigated using the proposed cavitation passive control method. In addition, the pressure pulsations in the wake region of the hydrofoil were reduced significantly. It can be concluded that the suppression of cavitation instabilities can improve the operating life and reliability of the marine and hydraulic systems.