Can aeroplane propellers suffer from cavitation like marine propellers ?

Answer 1

Going strictly by the definition of 'cavitation' the aeroplane propellers cannot suffer from cavitation. However, if the pressure suddenly drops in the air mass through which the aircraft is travelling, then a sudden reduction of load on the propeller can result in something similar to cavitation in marine.

Answer 2

Yes and No. (I seem to be starting a lot of answers that way lately.)

They can suffer reduced efficiency and create more than usual noise, but they don't, per se, cavitate.

A propeller is an airfoil, the same as a wing, and it can be stalled, meaning that the air doesn't flow smoothly across it.

A propeller also loses efficiency from the tips of the blades to the inside as the prop tips break the sound barrier.

Turbine engines can suffer a compressor stall, (which is usually L-O-U-D,) and can be rather colorful. Nothing says fun like a fireball coming out of the inlet.

Helicoptor rotors not only stall like a fixed wing airplane, but can enter the vortex from their own rotors, resulting in ring vortex settling.

Props, rotors and turbines can lose efficiency, can stall, and make an @ssload of noise doing it, but it's technically not cavitation because the fluid mediums are different; they're not causing a sufficient enough decrease in pressure to cause the air to briefly change to and back from plasma in the way that a marine propeller cavitates, generating short lived bubbles behind it.

DGI

Answer 3

Cavitate Definition

Answer 4

Cavitation is also the name of the pitting on the (Marine) prop blade that is caused by the sudden formation of the bubbles. The "Pop" literally takes tiny chunks out of the metal blade, and as these bubbles generally form at certain hydrodynamic constants, the bubbles form in nearly the same place.....which really eats into the blades. This can also happen in an airscrew, but usually because of dirt/polution in the air, and also the thickness of the air. Check the blades and windshields or aircraft that operate from the countryside versus those from a City.

Answer 5

Propellers are basically air foils and, as such, are subject to stalling if the pitch is too steep. You get the same turbulence that causes cavitation in water, but with out the steam bubbles that erode an underwater propeller

Answer 6

Cavitation is the formation of bubbles behind the propeller blade as it spins in the water. It is by it's very definition impossible to exist outside the water.

Answer 7

yes they can. cavitation is merely the separation of the flow medium from the impeller or propeller pushing that medium. it doesnt matter if the medium is water, air, hydrocarbons, or what ever. if the flow separates from the motivating force, that is cavitation in the truest sense of the word.

Answer 8

I'm no expert on props per se', but you can disrupt the airflow to them and since they are an airfoil you can get a result the same as cavitation but would be called something else (any engineers here?)
What Mike Tyson (above) is referring to is called "settling with power"

Answer 9

lol, nope, but I just made a joke about it in the last answer I gave. Crazy story. I feel like a propeller is a hard thing to walk into. The only real excuse is if you're fighting Indiana Jones on a small airfield.

Answer 10

no, cavitaion apperas only underwater. the propellers encounter different limitations, like reaching the Mach 1 speed at the prop tips, and probably the local stall when being used by a very tough and stupid crew.