Abstract
The very erosive cavitation is simulated by an inclined propeller dynamometer in the medium-size cavitation tunnel of MOERI. The inclined shaft for propeller makes strong cavitaion, which occurs around the root of a propeller blade. The cavitation begins at the leading edge of the propeller and contracted toward the trailing edge through the reentrant jet action. The cavity focused on the region near the trailing edge collapsed over the blade surface. As the impact pressure by the cavitation collapsing is too strong, it can damage the blade surface in the form of pit. This cavitation impacts created by the collapsing process are similar to the full-scale ones and are different from those by other erosion test methods. The newly developed cavitation erosion test method can be applied to evaluate the materials such as metals, ceramics and coatings in terms of cavitation resistance.