Effect of Entrained Air on Cavitation Damage

1974 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. O. Russell ◽  
G. J. Sheehan

When water flows at high velocity over a surface, quite small boundary irregularities may trigger cavitation which can, in turn, cause extensive damage. Concrete surfaces downstream from high head outlet gates are particularly vulnerable to cavitation damage.Operating experience and previous experimental work suggest that cavitation damage can be greatly reduced and, in some cases, eliminated by entrained air in the water.Experiments were carried out with a special high head test facility in Vancouver to obtain additional data on the effect of air entrainment. These tests confirmed its effectiveness. In this paper, previous evidence is reviewed, the experiments are described, and the results presented. Finally suggestions are made about the design of hydraulic structures which involve high velocity flow.

1991 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 358-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Kells ◽  
C. D. Smith

Spillways for medium and high head dams may be exposed to high velocity flows and the associated destructive phenomenon of cavitation. Cavitation may occur at rough spots in the surface of the chute or tunnel, at local discontinuities in the finished surface such as construction joints, and at locations along critical flow profiles having significant deviations from design specifications. This paper addresses, on the basis of a review of the literature, a method for preventing or reducing cavitation damage on spillways through the use of spillway aerators. While the ability of induced or forced aeration to reduce or eliminate cavitation has been known for many years, it is only in relatively recent times that the aeration mechanism has been used to this advantage on spillways subject to high velocity flow. The recent application of aerators to spillway design is related, in part, to the trend toward higher head dams and larger design unit discharge rates. Design considerations and criteria for spillway aerators are presented in the paper, and the use of physical hydraulic models to make determinations of aerator performance is discussed. The intent of the paper is to provide a document with sufficient detail and scope to be useful as a first resource for spillway design practitioners. Key words: aerator design, air entrainment, cavitation, design criteria, high dam, model – prototype comparison, physical hydraulic model, spillway, spillway aeration.


1994 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 404-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hubert Chanson

Aeration devices are introduced along chute spillways and at bottom outlets to prevent cavitation damage in high velocity flows. Bottom aerators are characterized by large quantities of air entrained along the jet interfaces and also by a strong deaeration process near the impact of the water jet with the spillway bottom. In this paper, the aeration and deaeration occurring respectively in the aeration region and in the impact region are reviewed. A reanalysis of air concentration data obtained on models provides information on the flow characteristics at the end of the impact region. These results enable an accurate initialization of the downstream flow calculations using the method developed by Chanson. Key words: bottom aeration devices, aerators, spillways, air entrainment, detrainment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Cihan Aydin ◽  
Ercan Isik ◽  
A. Emre Ulu

AbstractDue to high flow velocity, the spillway surfaces of high-head dams can expose to cavitational damage. The most effective and economical method of protection from this damage is aerated to flow using aerators. In this study, a spillway aerator of the roller-compacted concrete dam of 100 m height was analyzed using two-phase computational fluid dynamic model to overcome the cavitation damage on the spillway surface. The numerical analysis with prototype dimensions was performed for various flow conditions (5223, 3500, 1750 and 1000 m3/s of flow rate), and obtained results were compared with some experimental observation in the literature. Numerical and experimental results indicated that the cavitation occurs on the surface after a certain downstream point based on cavitation indices. The air entrainment rate and air concentrations supplied by means of the aerator were determined to avoid the cavitational damage. While the experimental results can contain considerable scale effect in terms of air entrainment rate owing to, e.g., viscous effects especially for small scales, the numerical models with prototype dimensions gave much more accurate results. In other words, it can be also mentioned that the actual aeration amount is much greater than that obtained from the model experiments. The results based on numerical analysis showed that the aerator device meet air demand to prevent the cavitation damage.


Author(s):  
Ho-Yun Nam ◽  
Jong-Man Kim ◽  
Byoung-Hae Choi ◽  
Jong-Hyeun Choi

An experimental study has been carried out to measure the critical conditions for the inception of an air entrainment by breaking the surface wave at the free surface in the water test facility. The experimental parameters are the vessel diameter, the nozzle diameter, the mean water-level and the water flow rate. More than 400 experimental data which show whether the air is entrained or not at a given experimental condition are obtained, and an experimental correlation that describes the air entrainment condition is developed. The correlation is described by the ratio between the diameter and height of the vessel, the ratio between the diameter of the nozzle and the height of the vessel, the modified Froude number and a modified Weber number. In this experiment two cases of air entrainment are observed. One case is that the air entrainment occurred due to the destruction of the surface wave from the center, and the other case is due to the crash of the water wave to the vessel wall. Theses two cases occur irregularly and the entrained air bubble distributes uniformly in the water.


1994 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 451-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nobuyuki Yatsuyanagi ◽  
Hiroshi Sakamoto ◽  
Kazuo Sato

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 341-355
Author(s):  
Vyacheslav Afanasievich Vinogradov ◽  
Natalya Valeryevna Guryleva ◽  
Mikhail Anatolyevich Ivan'kin ◽  
Vladimir Alekseevich Stepanov

2018 ◽  
Vol 141 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Pace ◽  
Dario Valentini ◽  
Angelo Pasini ◽  
Ruzbeh Hadavandi ◽  
Luca d'Agostino

The paper describes the results of recent experiments carried out in the Cavitating Pump Rotordynamic Test Facility for the dynamic characterization of cavitation-induced flow instabilities as simultaneously observed in the stationary and rotating frames of a high-head, three-bladed axial inducer with tapered hub and variable pitch. The flow instabilities occurring in the eye and inside the blading of the inducer have been detected, identified, and monitored by means of the spectral analysis of the pressure measurements simultaneously performed in the stationary and rotating frames by multiple transducers mounted on the casing near the inducer eye and on the inducer hub along the blade channels. An interaction between the unstable flows in the pump inlet and in the blade channels during cavitating regime has been detected. The interaction is between a low frequency axial phenomenon, which cyclically fills and empties each blade channel with cavitation, and a rotating phenomenon detected in the inducer eye.


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