Mapping Venturi cavitation in a new closed loop facility devoted to study thermodynamic effects

The influence of cavitation in water heating processes is still an unknown issue. To develop such knowledge, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech (UPC), in collaboration with the Spanish environmental engineering company Condorchem Envitech, S.L., has designed and built a new closed loop system to generate controlled cavitation in a Venturi test section. The aim of this test rig is to study the effects of cavitation on the heat generation in circulating water at moderate temperatures. Firstly, the pump’s characteristic curves and the system’s resistance curves have been obtained at different rotating speeds and flow rates. To characterize the cavitation development and its behavior along the full operating range of the system, a complete series of tests have been carried out measuring pressures, temperatures, flow rate, pump’s head and power supply. During the tests, visual records of the cavitation inside the Venturi test section have also been taken to quantify the amount of vapor being generated. As a result, a detailed cavitation map of the test rig has been obtained that will be used as a reference to investigate the thermodynamic effects of cavitation. In particular, the changes of temperature in the pumped water with and without cavitation will be compared to quantify its possible contribution to the system heating process.Peer Reviewe