Cavitation onset induced by sudden acceleration

Abstract

A liquid-filled glass bottle can fracture when an impact is imposed. High-speed photography reveals that its fracture is caused by the collapse/rebound of cavitation bubbles. In order to avoid the fracture, accurate prediction on cavitation onset is crucial. However, conventional cavitation number C, which is based on the mean flow velocity, does not predict cavitation onset correctly. Thus, in this paper, we present a new formulation of cavitation number Ca, which is taken acceleration effect into account. We conduct experiments with varying parameters, i.e., the internal pressure, the vapor pressure, the liquid density, the magnitude of acceleration, and the liquid column length. We impose an impact on the tube filled partially with a liquid and observe cavitation onset by a high-speed camera. The comparison of the proposed cavitation number Ca and experimental data showed reasonable agreement, indicating that the proposed cavitation number Ca is suitable for predicting cavitation onset in an accelerated.