An Experimental Study of Cavitating Inducers

Abstract

The user of a turbo machine is mainly interested only in the overall hydrodynamic performance of the device. However, the designer is almost always confronted with the problem of achieving the intended performance in the face of many conflicting hydrodynamic and system requirements. In certain areas it may happen that a formerly deleterious effect (such as the occurrence of cavitation) can be turned to good advantage as in the case of the supercavitating hydrofoil or propeller. Unfortunately, this happy circumstance is not the lot of the designer of a liquid pumping system when the effects of cavitation are predominant. That this is so, follows from the fact that the dissipation effects in production of lift by a hydrofoil are relatively unimportant whereas dissipation is important in the decrease of energy of a fluid stream as in the case of a pump.