Enhancing the aggressive intensity of hydrodynamic cavitation through a Venturi tube by increasing the pressure in the region where the bubbles collapse

In this paper, we used a Venturi tube for generating hydrodynamic cavitation, and in order to obtain the optimum conditions for this to be used in chemical processes, the relationship between the aggressive intensity of the cavitation and the downstream pressure where the cavitation bubbles collapse was investigated. The acoustic power and the luminescence induced by the bubbles collapsing were investigated under various cavitating conditions, and the relationships between these and the cavitation number, which depends on the upstream pressure, the downstream pressure at the throat of the tube and the vapor pressure of the test water, was found. It was shown that the optimum downstream pressure, i.e., the pressure in the region where the bubbles collapse, increased the aggressive intensity by a factor of about 100 compared to atmospheric pressure without the need to increase the input power. Although the optimum downstream pressure varied with the upstream pressure, the cavitation number giving the optimum conditions was constant for all upstream pressures. (C) 2016 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).