Erosion of Grooved Surfaces by Cavitating Jet with Hydraulic Oil

Abstract

To study the effect of impingement surface geometry, a cavitation erosion experiment was conducted using a submerged cavitating jet rig with hydraulic oil. The test setup comprised a test chamber with a long-orifice nozzle, a hydraulic pump with an electric motor, hydraulic auxiliaries, including valves, a cooler, a filter, a reservoir, and measuring instruments, including pressure gages and a thermometer. Hexahedral specimens made of aluminum alloy with flat and grooved surfaces and oblique angles were prepared. Hydraulic oil with a viscosity grade of 32 was used at 40˚C as the test fluid. The upstream absolute pressure was kept at 10.1 MPa and the cavitation numbers were set at 0.02 - 0.04. The results of this experiment yielded the following conclusions. The mass loss of the grooved specimens did not increase monotonically as the exposure time increased. The standoff distances at the maximum mass loss for the flat and grooved specimens were almost equivalent...