ISSN: 1065-3090 Print

ISSN: 1940-4336 Online

	You can order a single issue or an individual article, as well as view the table of contents or article abstract by clicking on the volume number, then the issue number in the right sidebar.
Institutional price: $664.00
Online subscription

Year 1998, Volume 5 / Issue 1

Pages: 93

Article price - $35.00

A STUDY OF CAVITATION AND NOISE IN RECTANGULAR ORIFICES WITH ONE CHAMFERED EDGE

A. Thomas
School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052 Australia

Masud Behnia
School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia

K. P. Byrne
School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052 Australia

Rotary valves are constructed using a sleeve that contains axially aligned rectangular sharp-edged slots. The sleeve rotates on a shaft that also contains axially aligned rectangular chamfer-edged slots. Flow through the valve is controlled by the alignment of the sleeve slots and the shaft slots. The rectangular orifices through which the fluid flows are only tens of micrometers wide at small valve openings and as a result of the sharp edge-chamfered edge arrangement, the flow is presented with very different flow passages, depending upon the direction of flow through the orifices. In one direction the flow is led into the orifice through two converging surfaces and this flow is referred to as "upflow". The flow in the opposite direction is referred to as "downflow". Cavitation can be a serious problem in these valves. A novel test rig was constructed to allow the cavitating hydraulic fluid flowing through a single orifice in either direction to be viewed. It was found that the "upflow" configuration was significantly less prone to cavitation and associated noise than the "downflow" configuration.

pages 29-40

<< Previous article   Next article >>