Experimental investigation of a cavitating Venturi and its application to flow metering

Abstract

An experimental investigation has been carried out to evaluate the performance of a cavitating Venturi flow. For that purpose, a closed loop circuit with a centrifugal pump and a transparent asymmetric converging-diverging test section has been built which allows to set the pressure level and the flow rate. The system is instrumented with several pressure sensors and temperature probes that are continuously monitored during the tests. The experiments have consisted in generating non-cavitating and cavitating flows inside the Venturi under controlled conditions. The obtained results, which have been characterized as a function of the Venturi's discharge coefficient, pressure ratio and pressure loss coefficient, are in good agreement with previous studies carried out with standard Venturi geometries, specially under non-cavitating flows. The Venturi's performance under cavitation flows has been found to be dependent on the Venturi's inlet pressure and similar to a chocked flow condition with constant volumetric flow rate. On the basis of these observations and the analogous behaviour with compressible gas nozzles, a new flow coefficient has been derived which remains constant at any cavitating regime. Thus, this coefficient permits to use a Venturi as a flow meter on cavitation conditions.