Utilization of Secondary Jet in Cavitation Peening and Cavitation Abrasive Jet Polishing

The cavitation peening (CP) and cavitation abrasive jet polishing (CAJP) processes employ a cavitating jet to harden the surface or remove surface irregularities. However, a zero incidence angle between the jet and the surface limits the efficiency of these two processes. This limitation can be improved by introducing a secondary jet. The secondary jet interacts with the main jet, carrying bubbles to the proximity of the workpiece surface and aligning the disordered bubble collapse events. Through characterizing the treated surface of AL6061 in terms of the hardness distribution and surface roughness, it was found out that the secondary jet can increase the hardening intensity by 10%, whereas the material removal rate within a localized region increased by 66%. In addition, employing multiple secondary jets can create a patched pattern of hardness distribution. Another finding is that the hardening effect of the cavitation increases with the processing time at first and is then saturated.

Automatic Edge Detection Applied to Cavitating Flow Analysis: Cavitation Cloud Dynamics and Properties Measured through Detected Image Regions

In a cavitating water jet, cavity clouds emerge and collapse with an unsteady, but periodic tendency where the frequencies depend on the working conditions. The presented work aims at examining and analyze the dynamic behavior and properties of the clouds under different circumstances. Computer vision and image processing were introduced as tools to define the cavitation clouds based on the Contour Recognition technique. A Canny operator and Otsu threshold fragmenting methods were used. The use of these methods allows for a better understanding of the cavitating jet clouds' behavior based on the pixel intensities and shows that for an arbitrary cloud the surface itself has a dynamic feature and depends on the cavity composition. The clouds' properties could be measured and correlated to the applied working conditions. Also, the oscillation frequencies of the area of the clouds could be determined. The analysis shows that the quality of the obtained results depends mainly on the input threshold values separating the foreground and background pixels. The difficulty of defining the threshold value is discussed in the paper, as well as the validity of using the Contour Recognition technique in this field.

A Review on the Erosion Mechanism in Cavitating Jets and Their Industrial Applications

Cavitating jets have been widely studied for over a century, but despite the extensive literature on this subject, the implementation of cavitating jets in many industries is still very limited due to technical challenges. The main purpose of the present paper is to provide recommendations on using the cavitating jets based on a comprehensive literature review on the erosion mechanism in these jets. Self-resonating jets are extensively discussed in the present paper due to their importance in amplifying the erosion effect of cavitating jets. The influence of different jet nozzle geometric parameters and the operating conditions of the cavitating jet flow on the erosion mechanism is also discussed. Finally, well drilling in addition to multiple other industrial applications of cavitating jets are examined.

Erosion Mechanism of a Cavitating Jet on Groove Roughness

The erosion behavior of a cavitating jet on groove roughness was investigated experimentally using mass-loss characteristics, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observation, time-resolved shadowgraph, and schlieren flow visualizations. The wall morphology of the cavitating-jet erosion on the groove roughness indicated an increased mass loss, which was highly increased along the groove rather than across the groove. Furthermore, increased erosion pits were observed on the groove bottom along the grooves. The shadowgraph imaging of the cavitating jet on the rough wall showed noncircular cavitation bubble distributions along and across the grooves, which corresponds to the increased number of cavitation bubbles along the grooves and the decreased number of bubbles across the grooves. This result is consistent with the erosion morphology of the groove roughness. Schlieren imaging indicated that the frequency and intensity fluctuation of the shockwave formation did not change significantly on the groove roughness along and across the grooves. The findings in the study show that the increased erosion mechanism on groove roughness is caused by the increased number of impulsive forces and the shockwave focusing effect on the groove bottom.

Enhancing the Aggressive Intensity of a Cavitating Jet by Introducing Water Flow Holes and a Long Guide Pipe

It is known that the geometry of the nozzle has a great effect on the aggressive intensity of a cavitating jet. In previous reports, various nozzle geometries were proposed, and improvements made to the aggressive intensity were reported. However, no detailed description of the reasons why the aggressive intensity is improved by these various geometries was given. In this study, we conducted erosion tests on pure aluminum Japanese Industrial Standards JIS A1050P using 11 different nozzles with different geometries downstream from the throat outlet in order to understand the effects of the nozzle geometry on the aggressive intensity. In addition, in order to investigate the characteristics of the cavitating jet produced by each nozzle, measurements of the erosion areas, images of the cavitating jet using a high-speed video camera, and measurements of the impingement pressure of the cavitating jet were taken, and correlations between the parameters were obtained. It was found that the nozzle with the largest mass loss was a nozzle with water flow holes near to the throat outlet and a long guide pipe (LGP). The mass loss was 2.5 times that of the previously reported optimum geometry nozzle. Very high correlations were obtained between the mass loss, the inner diameter of the annular erosion area, the impingement pressure measured at the same standoff distance and the cavitation cloud lifetime. Based on these results and the images of the cavitating jets taken with the high-speed video camera, a new cavitating jet progression process is proposed.