Abstract
This paper first describes Phase III of the CAvitating PRopeller Experiment (CAPREX) performed at MIT’s variable pressure water tunnel. The three components of the screen generated nominal wake inflow were measured using an LDV system. The unsteady pressure field on the upper tunnel wall for the first three blade harmonics was also measured in a 5 × 5 grid above the propeller tip, for various propeller cavitation conditions from fully wetted to super-cavitating. Then, a recently developed numerical method which models the flow of a cavitating propeller inside of a tunnel is used for the calculation of the pressures on the tunnel walls. The effects of a time-varying blade cavity source and of the flexibility of the tunnel walls are included in the calculation. Lastly, the predicted pressures are compared directly to those measured in the experiment.
