Chordwise micro-jet placement reveals a trade-off between mean hydrodynamic performance and unsteady loading under cloud cavitation

Abstract

Prescribed tangential micro-jet injection can modify cloud-cavitation dynamics, but the chordwise location that improves mean hydrodynamic performance may differ from the location that minimizes unsteady loading. This study compares five injection locations (x/c = 0.15, 0.30, 0.45, 0.60, and 0.70) on a Clark-Y hydrofoil at Re = 7 x 10^5 and cavitation number 0.8. Transient large-eddy simulation with a Volume-of-Fluid formulation and the Schnerr-Sauer cavitation model is used in a two-dimensional parametric framework, with one representative three-dimensional case included to illustrate spanwise cavity deformation. The analysis considers vapor topology, turbulent kinetic energy, velocity and pressure fields, cycle-averaged surface pressure, hydrodynamic forces, force fluctuations, spectra, and cavity-thickness histories. Injection at x/c = 0.15 gives the highest cycle-averaged lift-to-drag ratio among the tested cases: drag decreases from 0.137 to 0.107 and the lift-to-drag ratio increases from 5.693 to 6.261, while lift decreases from 0.78 to 0.67. In contrast, x/c = 0.60 gives the lowest recorded force-fluctuation RMS, with lift- and drag-coefficient RMS values of about 0.112 and 0.0165. The preferred injection location is therefore objective-dependent: the location favored by mean hydrodynamic performance does not coincide with the location favored by unsteady-load reduction under the present conditions.