Search

When dealing with liquid flows, where operating temperature gets close to the liquid critical temperature, cavitation cannot be assumed as an isothermal phenomenon. Due to the relatively high density of vapor, the thermodynamic effect (decrease of temperature in the bulk liquid due to latent heat flow) becomes considerable and should not be neglected. For applications like pumping cryogenic fuel and oxidizer in liquid propulsion space launchers, consideration of the thermodynamic effect is essential - consequently the physical understanding of the phenomenon and its direct experimental observation has a great value. This study presents temperature measurements in a cavitating flow on a simple convergent-divergent constriction by infrared (IR) thermography. Developed cavitating flow of hot water (∼100 °C) was evaluated by high-speed IR thermography and compared with conventional high-speed visualization, at different operating conditions with the velocity range at the nozzle throat between 9.6 and 20.6 m/s and inlet pressure range between 143 and 263 kPa. Temperature depression near the nozzle throat - near the leading edge of cavitation was measured in a range up to ΔT = 0.5 K. This confirms the presence of the thermodynamic effects by cavitation phenomenon and it is in agreement with its theory. In the study, average temperature fields, fields of temperature standard deviation and time-resolved temperatures, are presented and discussed. In addition, statistical analysis between temperature drop and cavitation flow characteristics is shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently van Rijsbergen et al. (2012), by simultaneous observation of cavitation and acoustic emission measurements, and Petkovsek and Dular (2013), by simultaneous observation of both cavitation structures and cavitation damage, have pointed to the fact that the small scale structures and the topology of the cavitation clouds play a significant role in cavitation erosive potential. Despite the two, before mentioned, studies opened some new insights to the physics of cavitation damage, many new questions appeared. In the present study we attached a thin aluminum foil to the surface of a transparent Venturi section using two sided transparent adhesive tape. The surface was very soft – prone to be severely damaged by cavitation in a very short period of time. Using high speed cameras, which captured the images at 30,000 frames per second, we simultaneously recorded cavitation structures (from several perspectives) and the surface of the foil. Analysis of the images revealed that five distinctive damage mechanisms exist – spherical cavitation cloud collapse, horseshoe cavitation cloud collapse, the “twister” cavitation cloud collapse and in addition it was found that pits also appear at the moment of cavitation cloud separation and near the stagnation point at the closure of the attached cavity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Cavitation dynamics can be changed with surface functionalization. • Nanosecond-laser texturing was used for surface functionalization. • Cavitation dynamics depends on surface roughness, chemistry and wettability. • Incipient cavitation can be delayed with appropriate surface functionalization. The interaction between liquid flow and solid boundary can result in cavitation formation when the local pressure drops below vaporization threshold. The cavitation dynamics does not depend only on basic geometry, but also on surface roughness, chemistry and wettability. From application point of view, controlling cavitation in fluid flows by surface functionalization is of great importance to avoid the unwanted effects of hydrodynamic cavitation (erosion, noise and vibrations). However, it could be also used for intensification of various physical and chemical processes. In this work, the surfaces of 10-mm stainless steel cylinders are laser textured in order to demonstrate how hydrodynamic cavitation behavior can be controlled by surface modification. The surface properties are modified by using a nanosecond (10–28 ns) fiber laser (wavelength of 1060 nm). In such a way, surfaces with different topographies and wettability were produced and tested in a cavitation tunnel at different cavitation numbers (1.0–2.6). Cavitation characteristics behind functionalized cylindrical surfaces were monitored simultaneously by high-speed visualization (20,000 fps) and high frequency pressure transducers. The results clearly show that cavitation characteristics differ significantly between different micro-structured surfaces. On some surfaces incipient cavitation is delayed and cavitation extent decreased in comparison with the reference – a highly polished cylinder. It is also shown that the increased surface wettability (i.e., hydrophilicity) delays the incipient cavitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the last years there has been a substantial increase in reports of utilization of hydrodynamic cavitation in various applications. It has came to our attention that many times the results are poorly repeatable with the main reason being that the researchers put significant emphasis on the value of the cavitation number when describing the conditions at which their device operates. In the present paper we firstly point to the fact that the cavitation number cannot be used as a single parameter that gives the cavitation condition and that large inconsistencies in the reports exist. Then we show experiments where the influences of the geometry, the flow velocity, the medium temperature and quality on the size, dynamics and aggressiveness of cavitation were assessed. Finally we show that there are significant inconsistencies in the definition of the cavitation number itself. In conclusions we propose a number of parameters, which should accompany any report on the utilization of hydrodynamic cavitation, to make it repeatable and to enable faster progress of science and technology development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]