A New Dimension in Hydraulic Machinery Testing with the Quartz Crystal Thermometer

摘要

The development of the quartz crystal thermometer with high sensitivity and good stability has added a new dimension to the test evaluation of hydraulic machinery performance. Hydraulic losses appear as a heating effect in the fluid, and these small temperature increases can be detected with uncertainties of the order of 1 ft of head loss. The report presents the theory used in the hydrothermal method of testing and demonstrates its application in a particular pump test. The techniques used to properly average fluid temperature at a flow cross-section are described. The values of pump efficiency established by the conventional hydromechanical tests and those established by the hydrothermal measurements for eight tests had an average difference of 0.8 percentage points. This difference is well within experimental uncertainty. (Author)