Detailed Damage Characteristics in a Cavitating Venturi

Abstract

Detailed observations of cavitation pitting and the accompanying flow regime in cavitating venturis using water and mercury have been made. From these it is tentatively concluded that microjet impingement is the most important damaging mechanism for this type of flow, which is generally typical of much fluid flow machinery. Effects of grain size on damage rate are measured as is the surface-hardening due to cavitation attack. Correlations of limited generality are presented between accumulated damage and material mechanical properties, leading to the tentative conclusion that no such general correlation is possible.