Inception cavitating flow structure around a hydrofoil

To shed light on the inception cavitating turbulent flow structure, a high-speed video camera is used to visualize the cavitating patterns around a Clark-Y hydrofoil under the inception cavitation condition. The 2D-LDV technique is employed to measure the average turbulent velocity fields in inception cavitating and non-cavitating flow regimes. It is shown that the inception cavitating cavities are generated along with a hairpin-shaped vortex structure in the non-separated flow. The developing process of an inception cavity is the same as an individual cavitation bubble. There is no distinct difference between inception cavitating and non-cavitating turbulent flows. The contribution of the generation and collapse of an individual inception cavity to the average turbulent flow has not been observed.