Cavitating flow in non-circular opening spool valves with U-grooves

摘要

Cavitating flow in non-circular opening spool valves with U-grooves has been investigated in this article. Multifarious cavitating properties, including acoustic cavitation, morphologic cavitation, and discharge performance with cavitation, are investigated, the correlations of which are discussed. The critical opening condition in each valve is obtained based on the analysis of a throttling model. It is found that the cavitating properties show remarkable differences in the two situations when the opening is larger and smaller than the critical opening. Additionally, cavitation impacts on the discharge performance are investigated with the assistance of acoustic and visual detection.