Experimental and computational analyses for induced cavitating flows in orifice plates

The purpose of this study is to evaluate cavitation behavior in orifice flow geometries. The influence of operating conditions (ten inlet pressures ranging from 50 to 730 kPa) and orifice designs (three orifice thicknesses ranging from 2 to 16 mm) are studied. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) were used to evaluate cavitational flow in single- and two-phase models. These models were compared with experimental data. The results showed that the single-phase model cannot represent well the hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) behavior, since relative errors were close to 20%. In contrast, the two-phase model presented relative errors less than 10%, which indicates that the HC must be working in the two-phase model. The highest cavitational intensity was observed for an inlet pressure of 730 kPa compared to other pressures, and the 6 mm thickness plate presented optimal cavitational activity among the tested scenarios.