A Review of Experimental Detection Methods of Cavitation in Centrifugal Pumps and Inducers

Abstract

An important flow mechanism that affects the performance and efficiency of centrifugal pumps is cavitation. In recent years, many researchers have studied the physics of cavitation in order to create appropriate detection methodologies. The aim of this paper is to review the various experimental tools that have been developed so far and enlighten the area of future research on the field of cavitation monitoring. According to the results, cavitation detection is possible, but a large number of sensors have to be used and permanent changes in the machine need to be made for increasing the results reliability. Therefore, future research steps are proposed towards the development of reliable, accurate but also easy to install and low cost experimental set ups.