Optical measurements of gas bubbles in oil behind a cavitating micro-orifice flow

In hydraulic systems, it is common for air release to occur behind valves or throttles in the form of bubbles. These air bubbles can affect the behavior and the performance of these systems to a substantial extent. In the paper, gas release in a liquid flow behind an orifice is analyzed by optical methods for various operation points. The bubbles are observed with a digital camera, and a detection algorithm based on the Hough transformation is used to determine their number and size. The appearance of gas bubbles is very sensitive to the inlet and outlet pressure of the orifice. Gas bubbles are only observed if choking cavitation occurs. An empirical relationship between an adjusted cavitation number and the appearance of gas release is presented. It is assumed that the observed bubbles contain mostly air. With the applied pressure differences, up to 30 % of the dissolved air was degassed in the form of bubbles.

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