Pressure fluctuation is the primary reason for unstable operations of double-suction centrifugal pumps. By using flush mounted pressure transducers in the semispiral suction chamber and the volute casing of a double-suction pump, the pressure fluctuation signals were obtained and recorded at various operating conditions. Spectral analyses were performed on the pressure fluctuation signals in both frequency domain and time-frequency domain based on fast Fourier transform (FFT) and an adaptive optimal-kernel time-frequency representation (AOK TFR). The results show that pressure fluctuations at the impeller rotating frequency and some lower frequencies dominated in the semispiral suction chamber. Pressure fluctuations at the blade passing frequency, the impeller rotating frequency, and their harmonic frequencies were identified in the volute casing. The amplitude of pressure fluctuation at the blade passing frequency significantly increased when the flow rate deviated from the design flow rate. At 107% of the design flow rate, the amplitude increased more than 254% than that at the design flow rate. The time-frequency characteristics of these pressure fluctuations were affected greatly by both operating conditions and measurement locations. At partial flow rates the pulsation had a great irregularity and the amplitudes at the investigated frequencies were much larger than ones at the design flow rate. An asymmetrical pressure fluctuation structure in the volute casing was observed at all flow rates. The pulsation behavior at the blade passing frequency was the most prominent near the volute tongue zone, and the pressure waves propagated in both the radial and circumferential directions.

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This paper aims to reveal the influence of a rigid wall with a gas entrapping hole on the characteristics of the dynamic behavior of a laser-induced bubble collapse. A high-speed camera system was used to record the oscillation process of the laser-induced bubble on a rigid wall with a gas entrapping hole. When a bubble is generated by a laser above the wall with a gas entrapping hole, the entire bubble collapse stays away from the wall or splits into two bubbles because of a radial jet induced by bubble contraction. These two distinctive collapse modes are dependent on the distance between the wall and the bubble. The focus of this study is the quantitative analysis of the jet formation, bubble migration, and oscillation period, and compared with the behavior of the bubble near a rigid wall. The results show that unlike the generation of the bubble near a rigid wall, a rigid wall with a gas entrapping hole affects the morphology of the jet and changes the direction of migration of the bubble, and decreases the oscillation period. Thus, the rigid wall with a gas entrapping hole could be effective for reducing cavitation erosion on the wall surface, which is supported by our experiment results.

The objective of this paper is to observe and investigate the early evolution of the shock wave, induced by a nanosecond pulsed laser in still water. A numerical method is performed to calculate the propagation of the shock wave within 1µs, after optical breakdown, based on the Gilmore model and the Kirkwood-Bethe hypothesis. The input parameters of the numerical method include the laser pulse duration, the size of the plasma and the maximally extended cavitation bubble, which are measured utilizing a high time-resolved shadowgraph system. The calculation results are verified by shock wave observation experiments at the cavitation bubble expansion stage. The relative errors of the radiuses and the velocity of the shock wave front, reach the maximum value of 45% at 5 ns after breakdown and decrease to less than 20% within 20 ns. The high attenuation characteristics of the shock wave after the optical breakdown, are predicted by the numerical method. The quick time and space evolution of the shock wave are carefully analyzed. The normalized shock wave width is found to be independent of the laser energy and duration, and the energy partitions ratio is around 2.0 using the nanosecond pulsed laser.