Abstract. Cavitation phenomena occuring in converging-diverging nozzle (Venturi tube) are described in the paper. A closed test circuit with possibility to control both flow rate and static pressure level were used. Loss coefficient was evaluated for different sigma numbers resulting in full "static" characterization of the nozzle. Visualizations of the cavitation pattern development were acquired and matched with evolution of the loss coefficient. Three cavitation regimes are described: partial cavitation, fully developed cavitation, supercavitation.

No abstract

Abstract. Hydrodynamic cavitation in single and multihole orifices was experimentally investigated to assess their hydraulic characteristics: loss coefficients, inception cavitation number, cavitation number for transition to supercavitation. Significant difference for singlehole and multihole orifices was observed in terms of the measured loss coefficient. It is significantly more effective to use multihole orifices, where energy dissipation is much lower.It was found that using scaling factor given by ratio of orifice thickness suggests linear behaviour of both loss coefficient and inception cavitation number. Orifices seem to be convenient choice as flow constriction devices inducing cavitation due to their simplicity.

Hydrodynamic cavitation represents complex physical phenomenon undesirably affecting operation as well as lifespan of many hydraulic machines from small valves to the large hydro power plants. On the other hand, the same phenomenon and its concomitants such as pressure pulsations can be exploited in many positive ways. One of them which seems to be very promising and perspective is the cavitation utilization for reduction of the microorganisms such as cyanobacteria within large bulks of water. Mutual effect of the swirl induced by the upstream mounted generator and flow constriction in converging–diverging nozzle has been experimentally investigated. The analysis of the hydraulic losses in the wide range of the cavitation regimes has been done as well as the investigation of the pipe wall acceleration induced by the fluctuations of the cavitating structures. The dynamics of the cavitation was studied using the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) of the captured video records. The main scope of this paper is numerical investigation complementing the experimental results. The multiphase simulations were carried out using the OpenFOAM 1606+ and its interPhaseChangeFoam solver. The present study focuses on computational fluid dynamics results of the cavitating velocity field within the nozzle and analysis of the loss coefficient within the nozzle. The results of the numerical analysis were utilized for the further discussion of the experimental results.

No abstract