A Data Acquisition System to Detect Bubble Collapse Time and Pressure Losses in Water Cavitation

This paper presents a data acquisition system oriented to detect bubble collapse time and pressure losses in water cavitation in an internal orifice. An experimental campaign on a cavitating flow of water through an orifice has been performed to analyze the flow behavior at different pressures and temperatures. The experiments were based on visual observations and pressure fluctuations frequency analysis. Comparing the visual observations and the spectral analysis of the pressure signals, it is evident that the behavior of the different cavitating flows can be correlated to the frequency spectrum of the upstream, downstream and differential pressure fluctuations. The further reduction of the cavitation number and the consequent increase in the width of the cavitating area are related to a corresponding significant increase of the amplitude of typical frequency components. The spectrogram analysis of the pressure signals leads to the evaluation of the bubble collapse time, also compared with the numerical results calculated by the Rayleigh–Plesset equation.