Estimating cavitation noise on valves has vexed many experts due to the apparent complexity of the phenomena. The problem has been tackled by private firms and even resulted in an IEC standard 60654-8-4. While turbulence noise produced with water in control valves can be predicted fairly accurately, since it follows standard hydrodynamic and acoustic laws, cavitation still challenges established wisdom. Current methods are either too complicated or not accurate enough. This writer also studied the phenomena for many years and lately found that the slopes and magnitudes of the plotted data of cavitation seemed to be all identical for a given Xfz (coefficient of incipient cavitation) value. This happens irrespective of the underlying turbulence input such as flow rate, inlet pressure and so on. This points to the conclusion, that cavitation is not a hydraulic phenomena, rather an aerodynamic one caused by rapid pressure fluctuations in the fluid.
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