Cavitation instabilities in hydraulic machines

Abstract

Cavitation instabilities in hydraulic machines, hydro turbines and turbopump inducers, are reviewed focusing on the cause of instabilities. One-dimensional model of hydro turbine system shows that the overload surge is caused by the diffuser effect of the draft tube. Experiments show that this effect also causes the surge mode oscillations at part load. One dimensional model of a cavitating turbopump inducer shows that the mass flow gain factor, representing the cavity volume increase caused by the incidence angle increase is the cause of cavitation surge and rotating cavitation. Two dimensional model of a cavitating turbopump inducer shows that various modes of cavitation instabilities start to occur when the cavity length becomes about 65% of the blade spacing. This is caused by the interaction of the local flow near the cavity trailing edge with the leading edge of the next blade. It was shown by a 3D CFD that this is true also for real cases with tip cavitation. In all cases, it was shown that cavitation instabilities are caused by the fundamental characteristics of cavities that the cavity volume increases with the decrease of ambient pressure or the increase of the incidence angle.