Experimental and Computational Studies on Characteristics of Cavitation Flow in Centrifugal Pump

Abstract

The work presents the investigation of characteristics of the cavitation flow in a centrifugal pump using a combination of experimental and computational studies. In experimental studies, the head drop curve and pressure signals were dynamically measured. The numerical computations were implemented based on Zwart mass transfer cavitation model and a modified RNG k-ε turbulence model. The computational head drop curve showed good agreement with the experimental results. The computational results and experimental results revealed that the cavitation of a centrifugal pump could be divided into four types: non-cavitation, incipient cavitation, leading edge cavitation, and cloud cavitation. The main frequency of pressure in the pump of four cavitation types is the blade passing frequency (fb). The larger the cavity is, the greater the pressure amplitude at the blade passing frequency (fb). For the cloud cavitation, the cavity bubbles grow and collapse continuously at the edge of the cavity clouds, which led to a significant increase in the pulse quantity of pressure derivation.