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Experimental study on effects of air injection on cavitation pressure pulsation and vibration in a centrifugal pump with inducer

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Abstract

Cavitation commonly induces performance deterioration and system vibration in many engineering applications. This paper aims to investigate the effects of air injection on cavitation evolution, pressure pulsation and vibration in a centrifugal pump with inducer. In this paper, the high-speed camera is used to capture the gas flow pattern and cavitation evolution process in the inducer. The impacts of air injection on the inlet pressure pulsation and vibration are also investigated. The results show that the cavitation development in the inducer undergoes four patterns: incipient cavitation, sheet cavitation, cloud cavitation and super cavitation. During the development of cavitation, the main frequency of the pressure pulsation shifts to lower frequencies, and the amplitude of the vibration increases. In addition, air injection promotes the incipient cavitation but delays the cavitation development. A small amount of air can effectively decrease amplitudes of pressure pulsation and vibration. But as the air content increases, the fluctuations and amplitudes of pressure pulsation and vibration increase.

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Acknowledgement

(This research received other funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Center of Fluid Machinery Engineering and Technology, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, China

    Yan-hong Mao, Hou-lin Liu, Yong Wang, Jie Chen & Fei Liu

  2. Suzhou Vocational Institute of Industrial Technology, Suzhou, 215104, China

    Yong Wang

Authors
  1. Yan-hong Mao
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  2. Hou-lin Liu
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  3. Yong Wang
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  4. Jie Chen
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  5. Fei Liu
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Correspondence to Hou-lin Liu.

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Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. Hou-lin Liu is editorial board member for the Journal of Hydrodynamics and was not involved in the editorial review, or the decision to publish this article. All authors declare that there are no other competing interests.

Ethical approval: This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Informed consent: Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Additional information

Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51979126).

Biography: Yan-hong Mao (1997-), Female, Ph. D. Candidate

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Mao, Yh., Liu, Hl., Wang, Y. et al. Experimental study on effects of air injection on cavitation pressure pulsation and vibration in a centrifugal pump with inducer. J Hydrodyn 35, 1168–1178 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42241-024-0086-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42241-024-0086-7

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