Modeling and scaling of cavitation compliance in Venturi

Abstract

Understanding cavitation compliance in Venturi is important for research on system oscillations in fluid machinery, which describes the responsiveness of the cavity size to alternating inflow parameters. To consider both Venturi geometries and inflow conditions in evaluating the cavitation compliance, the cavitation region is modeled as a large vapor bubble, based on the experimental characteristics of the attached cavity characterizing the cavity size. Steady-state numerical solutions of cavity sizes show the influencing trends by geometrical and inflow parameters consistent with experiments. According to the analytical solution approximating the numerical solution, effective cavitation number σe and effective length ratio L̃* are defined to unify these influencing parameters. Based on the causes of cavitation pressure drops at the throat indicated by σe, cavitation compliance can be categorized into two regimes. Regime I features a smaller σe, and the dynamic pressure dominates in the pressure drops, theoretically resulting in L̃*∝σe−9. Regime II features a larger σe, and the bend-flow inertia and dynamic pressure are comparable, resulting in L̃*∝σe−2 in contrast. The power-law predictions of cavitation compliance are validated by experiments and literature.