Experimental Study on Pressure Transients With Cavitation in Low Pressure Water-Hydraulic Pipeline

In this study, pressure transients are triggered by a steel ball, which is released from an upstream reservoir to hit a valve seat and shut off water flow in a horizontal straight copper pipeline. The pressure pulsations, cavitation and gas bubbles growth and collapse in the low pressure water-hydraulic pipeline are recorded by two pressure transducers and a high speed video camera, respectively. In addition, the influences of initial volume of gas bubbles in water and instant leakage in valve are investigated. The experimental results indicate that increasing initial gas bubble volume in water and the instant leakage of the valve will help to reduce magnitudes and numbers of pressure peaks during pressure transients. Then methods to reduce pressure pulsations in pipelines are put forward.