Experimental investigation of characteristics of cavitation in gasoline

Abstract

Cavitation processes in gasoline were experimentally investigated with an objective of gathering measurement data for developing an appropriate numerical model with an intention of simulating flows in automotive fuel pumps. An experimental setup was manufactured to examine bubble growth and collapse processes in gasoline under different circumstances. Bubbles were found to collapse at only a considerably higher pressure than the one they were produced at resulting in a hysteresis in the bubble volume - absolute pressure diagram. According to the results a time-dependent deterministic model might be developed for the contraction phase in spite of nucleation being a stochastic phenomenon. Investigating the response of the system to small disturbances the experienced characteristics were very similar to those of heat conduction and diffusion equations leading to the conclusion that size changes of bubbles seem to be controlled by the heat and mass transport processes undergoing in their vicinity and the multico mponent diffusion effects can be responsible for the observed hysteresis. The experimental results established a good starting point for numerical model development.