A NEW MORE SENSITIVE ACOUSTIC METHOD FOR CAVITATION DETECTION

摘要

Cavitation phenomena in pumps have always been an important problem. The rising of cavitation is classically detected by the lowering of the performance of the pump. But the presence of cavitation can be experimentally detected even before the performance of the pump is lowered through more sensitive methods, as the acoustic and the visual ones. In fact it had been possible in previous works to define a so called "Cavitation Curve" and to find its parameters values just through the acoustic and the visual methods. Recently the Authors, through new experiments, discovered a new easier and more sensitive direct acoustic method. This one can be employed very easily and without expenses, in order to prevent initiation of cavitation in pumps. So it has been possible, through this direct acoustic method, to obtain new experimental "Cavitation Curves". Their comparison with the acoustic and mechanical cavitation curves is discussed.