Control effect of micro vortex generators on attached cavitation instability

The control effect of micro-vortex generators (VGs) on the instability of attached cavitation was investigated in a series of experiments. The micro-VGs, located at the leading edge of a NACA0015 hydrofoil, were used to alter the near-wall flow and control the attached cavitation dynamics. The effect of the nondimensional height of micro-VGs on the nondimensional cavity length was quantitatively evaluated by regression equations through response surface methodology. The micro-VGs increased the nondimensional cavity length. The counter-rotating streamwise vortices induced by micro-VGs had a rectifying effect on the near-wall flow and withstood the flow disturbance in the spanwise direction. Additionally, the micro-VGs partially suppressed Rayleigh–Taylor instability and Kelvin–Helmholtz instability arising from reverse flow underneath the cavity. Under a partial cavity oscillation (PCO) condition, the growth of sheet cavitation was highly two-dimensional in the spanwise direction, and the cloud cavity shedding had a strict periodicity with a smaller Strouhal number (St) than for the smooth hydrofoil. The shedding cloud cavity was captured in a single spanwise vortex core, which was advected toward the trailing edge of the hydrofoil. The transition from PCO to transitional cavity oscillation (TCO) occurred when the cavity length was larger than 0.8 of chord length. Under the TCO condition, the concave cavity closure line of sheet cavitation on the hydrofoil showed perfect symmetry and the St was nearly constant. As a result of our investigation, the micro-VGs have high potential to manipulate and control the attached cavitation dynamics.