Reentrant Motion in Cloud Cavitation due to Cloud Collapse and Pressure Wave Propagation

It is well known that reentrant jet motion in periodic cloud cavitation means upward flow from the cavity closure area of cloud cavitation. However the mechanism of reentrant motion seems to remain unsolved clearly. In the present study some experiments were conducted about the mechanism of reentrant motion in a fixed type cavity for a convergent-divergent nozzle. High speed video observation and image analysis based on the frame difference method were made about unsteady cloud cavitation with a periodic structure of cavitation cloud shedding. As a result, the main points are experimentally found as follows; 1) a typical pattern of reentrant motions can be caused by the pressure wave propagation from the collapse of cavitation cloud shed downstream and 2) the frame difference method is very useful in an image analysis for high speed video observation of cavitating flow because the trajectory of pressure waves can be clearly visualized by the method.