Unsteady behavior of periodic cloud cavitation is typically observed in the field of fluid machinery under a high speed liquid flow such as a cavitating hydrofoil as well as cavitating water jet. The instability of cloud cavitation remains to be completely solved though it has been confirmed that there are two instabilities which is an intrinsic instability of cavitation and a system instability. Sato, et al. have found through previous investigations that the pressure wave at the collapse of shedding clouds can make a trigger to cause a reentrant motion.
In the present study, the authors focus on a cavitating water jet to investigate the cavitation aspects in an axisymmetrical convergent-divergent nozzle and examine an unsteady behavior of cloud cavitation through high speed video observation and image analysis based on the frame difference method. Especially, the authors study the effect of nozzle divergent part (diffuser) as well as the upstream pressure effect on cloud cavitation in the nozzle. As a result the authors have found that there are two kinds in the shedding pattern and the reentrant motion pattern for cloud cavitation depending on the nozzle diffuser length.
