produce natural cavitation bubbles. The interfacial instabilities arising at the free surface allow for sensor characterization and algorithm testing in an environment that simulates supercavitation while maintaining low cost.

       In this thesis, some of the more important features such as the velocity profiles of air and water streams, vibration characteristics and interface conditions are studied. Velocity profile measurements of both air and water tunnels are carried out using pitotstatic probes.   The velocity profiles of the air tunnel are approximately uniform throughout the test section outside of the boundary layer. For the water tunnel, large error bars lead to inconclusive results regarding the mean now quality in the test section. Vibration measurements are made using accelerometers. This is to deduce the influence of vibration from fan and pump (driving the air and water tunnels) on the flow quality needs as a part of future work. An interface eduction method is developed to extract the interface from series of flow visualization images for a particular interface condition. Statistical quantities related to interface shape are obtained and discussed.