Mechanical Engineering - Theses

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Cavitation in hydraulic machinery: its influence on the design of impellers for centrifugal and axial-flow pumps

Lewis, William Powell ( 1963)

This thesis considers aspects of rotating hydraulic machinery of the centrifugal, mixed-flow, and axial-flow types; wherever the word "pump" is used without any qualifying adjective it is understood that it is a generic term which includes all these types. The objective is to present and discuss the methods available for the design of pump impellers for cavitating or near-cavitating conditions. In order to give an orderly and logical account of this subject the thesis opens with a description of cavitation in hydrodynamics, and this is followed by an examination of its mechanism and of the physical factors which affect it. Model experiments are an important tool in assisting the designer predict performance and one chapter is therefore devoted to a discussion of model laws and scale effects in cavitation. Chapters 4 and 5 deal with the detailed design of impellers for non-cavitating and cavitating flows, while the final chapter evaluates this work and draws some general conclusions.