© 2018 Copyright held by the author(s). Published by AIJR Publisher in Proceedings of First Conference for Engineering
Sciences and Technology (CEST-2018), September 25-27, 2018, vol. 2.
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original work is properly cited. ISBN: 978-81-936820-6-7
Effects of Different Fluids Properties on Cavitation
Performance in Centrifugal Pump
Saad Ghidhan
1*
, Moamar Hamed
1
, Mansor Benaros
2
1
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, College of Engineering, Elmergib
University, Libya
2
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, Alasmarya University, Libya
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21467/proceedings.4.9
* Corresponding author email: saadgedan@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
Cavitation, which is the formation and collapse of vaporous cavities in flowing liquids,
can degrade the performance of pumps and other hydraulic equipment. The aims of the
present research are to investigate the effect of different fluids properties on pump
cavitation performance. Consideration is given to examine the effect of liquid viscosity
and density on cavitation behavior. Experimental results are presented for a centrifugal
pump operating in water, kerosene and diesel fuel with different disposal rates of flow.
With references to the results, the water has affected by the cavitation at less Net Positive
Suction Head (NPSH) than other liquids, also it can be conducted that the kerosene
shares the closest cavitation behavior with diesel fuel. Therefore, the stress produced by
cavitation bubbles decreases with increase of viscosity of the liquid.
Keywords: Water, kerosene, diesel fuel, cavitation performance, centrifugal pump, Net
Positive Suction Head (NPSH(
1 Introduction
When a centrifugal pump handles liquids with different viscosity and specifications, there Net
Positive Suction Head (NPSH) normally will be different. The simple definition of the
NPSHA is the difference between pressure at the suction of the pump and the vapour pressure
for the liquid being pumped [1]. An increase or decrease of NPSH will result in cavitation
taking place in the pump. In result, the pump will be subject to abnormal operations, such as
loud noise, violent vibration, performance degradation, impeller or other components damage.
In fact, measuring or predicting NPSH of a centrifugal pump at various operating conditions
is quite important for the hydraulic design optimization and engineering application when the
pump handles different viscous liquids and it’s important to know the situation of operating
with this phenomena and how to avoid the problem of cavitation [2].
In almost of petroleum industries and chemical operations pumps will deal with liquids which
have such different specifications, there are two sorts of liquid products, which need to be
transported by centrifugal pumps. One kind of liquid is with a higher vapour pressure but with