Inception and Dynamics of Traveling-Bubble-Type Cavitation in a Venturi

Abstract

The inception of cavitation is basically caused by a bubble nucleus which flows into the low pressure region in the liquid flow. Therefore the phenomenon is dependent on the tensile strength or the nuclei concentration of tested water. The cavitation susceptibility of water which controls the cavitation inception point has been made clear though various methods were proposed to measure the nuclei concentration. Cavitation susceptibility meter using a small venturi tube is also one of the methods to measure the nuclei concentration. It is pointed out that this method can be directly related to active nuclei for cavitation inception and gives a useful and simple device to estimate the tensile strength of water. In the present paper, to establish a measurement method of cavitation susceptibility using a venturi tube, the following points are investigated, such as; the relation between the occurrence, count rate of cavitation bubbles and cavitation number, the measurement of positions and local pressure of bubble occurrence and the high-speed video observation of bubble aspects from inception to collapse. As the result, the main points obtained are as follows. A traveling-bubble cavitation appears dominantly in a nozzle-type venturi tube with little possibility of flow separation. Cavitation aspects and the bubble occurrence count rate change with cavitation number and water quality (dissolved gas content). Unstable sheet cavitation can be also observed near the venturi diffuser and at relatively low cavitation number. The various behaviors of traveling bubble cavitation in a venturi are observed from inception to collapse using a high-speed video camera system.