Temperature and cavitation

Abstract

Pressure, density, and temperature are the fundamental thermodynamic parameters. In a liquid flow field, once the local pressure drops to the saturated pressure, the liquid vapourizes and local cavitation occurs. The cavitation region of the flow is characterized by a mixture of liquid and vapour. Vapourization is an endothermic process. However, in the literature of the past several decades, this vapourization induced thermal effect was sometimes ignored in cavitating flows, and the temperature was always assumed as a constant in the whole flow field. In order to gain a deep insight into the mechanism of cavitation, temperature effects of cavitation are hereby investigated in this paper. An appreciable temperature drop has been found when cavitation occurs, which suggests that thermal effects in cavitating flows from the view of thermodynamics may be of great value to understand the mechanism of cavitation.