Cost effective full scale observation and recording of propeller blade cavitation

A cost effective method for observation and recording of full scale marine propeller cavitation is presented. The design of observing windows enables their relatively cheap and fast mounting/dismounting without necessarily having expensive ship docking. The window with an optical prism, flat with bottom plating, improves view angles without disturbing the ship wake. The series of full scale cavitation pattern photographs for a fast small ship and for a oil and chemical tanker is presented. The model-full scale correlation of cavitation patterns in the case of the presented small fast ship was not satisfactory. There was not sufficient similarity between the type and spreading of cavitation caverns. These results support the conclusions of the ITTC and cavitation tunnel experts, that modeling of cavitation patterns in cavitation tunnels has to be improved.