Experimental study on the unsteady behavior and frequency characteristics of high-speed submerged cavitating water jets

The frequency characteristics of cavitation fluctuations in high-speed cavitating jets are intricate due to the coupling mechanisms of unsteady behaviors. This study employs high-speed photography to experimentally investigate the relationship between frequency characteristics and the unsteady behavior of cavitating jets with various cavitation numbers. Temporal evolution patterns of the cavitating jets are analyzed through spatiotemporal (s-t) diagrams. The spatial distribution and temporal evolution of cavitation fluctuation frequencies are examined using fast Fourier transform (FFT) and continuous wavelet transform (CWT), respectively. Proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) are employed to identify coherent structures and their corresponding frequencies. In results, the s-t diagrams reveal the distinct regions influenced by cavitation shedding and collapse. FFT results indicate that upstream of the jet trajectory, spectral energy is concentrated in the shedding band, shifting toward lower frequencies with increasing axial distance. The CWT spectrum exhibits a single peak in the upstream, identifying it as the shedding frequency. POD modes associated with shedding dominate the energy contribution at higher cavitation numbers, while they become less prominent at lower cavitation numbers. DMD extracts and identifies coherent structures associated with shedding through frequency-specific decomposition.