Ultrasonics 49 (2009) 577–582

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Ultrasonics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ultras

Waveform analysis of cavitation in a globe valve

A. Masjedian Jazi, H. Rahimzadeh *
Fluid Mechanics Lab., Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), Tehran, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Cavitation is a dynamic phenomenon occurring in fluid flows, where the local static pressure is lower
Received 21 October 2008 than the saturated vapor pressure at working temperature. The growth and collapse of cavitation bubbles
Received in revised form 4 February 2009 leads to corrosion and pitting of metal surfaces. Considering the fact that erosion by cavitation is still one
Accepted 4 February 2009
of the current problems, it is important to detect the initiation, fully developed point of cavitation and to
Available online 20 February 2009
analyze its characteristics. In this research, an attempt is made to study acoustic waveform of cavitation
in the globe valve. The waveform is transformed by Fast Fourier Transform and its important parameters
Keywords:
such as amplitude, energy, frequency and so on are analyzed.
Cavitation
Acoustic emission
Ó 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Occurrence
Waveform
Detection

1. Introduction beings [10]. It has been proven that the pressure perturbation will
break the stability of a spherical bubble, and then cause it to col-
Cavitation detection by different methods and in different lapse [11,12]. In other words, experimental results have shown
working conditions are of interest in many fields [1]. The interest that cavitation erosion is easy to generate on a rough or wavy sur-
in the dynamics of cavitation bubbles in liquids mainly arises from face [13,14]. Other results of cavitation tests show that the effi-
their destructive consequences. In the field of hydraulic machinery ciency of the system is reduced due to cavitation and vibrations
or materials science, the growth and collapse of cavitation bubble and simultaneously the noise level increases.
leads to corrosion and pitting of metal surface. Moreover, cavita- As closing rate of valve is a complex and problematic subject
tion phenomenon also leads to the loss of efficiency [2]. [15], experiments were done in several closing percentage. One
Cavitation is a potential danger, especially when valves operate of the main problems is the influences of generated second flow
at low opening, and may damage the valve very rapidly. [16].
Sometimes, cavitation can occur resulting in noise, vibration The viscosity of fluid has effects on cavitation occurrence [17].
and rapid deterioration of the valve trim, and do not allow further This research only investigates cavitation in water.
operation. Thus, the monitoring of cavitation is of economic inter- In this study, four parameters were measured to investigate the
est. Usually the valve trim is destroyed and also the pipe can be af- initiation and fully developed point of cavitation. The first param-
fected as far away as 20 diameters downstream of the valve [3,4]. eter is downstream pressure of test valve having much influence
Industrial piping systems can experience severe low-frequency on cavitation occurrence. The second parameter is upstream pres-
vibration caused by internal flow of the conveyed fluid. Valves, dia- sure of the test valve that is important in two methods of the
phragms (singularities) and so on can result in annoying and even experiment. The third parameter is the volume flow rate which
unbearable noise and high vibration [5]. The cavitation effect is not shows the strength of vortices and secondary flows in valve; and
always an unwanted phenomenon. Some researchers make benefit the last one is the acoustic vibration of the valve showing the fre-
out of cavitation in different fields, such as treatment of organic quency and amplitude of cavitation waves.
wastewater, sterilization, chemical reactions and so on [6,7]. Two main parameters cause noise and vibration in the valve.
Erosion is commonly recognized as the result of the collapse of The first one is momentum of the fluid and the second one is the
a bubble near a solid wall [8,9]. cavitation phenomenon. These parameters cause vibration in sev-
Most researches about cavitation erosion have so far been car- eral frequencies [18].
ried out on the heart valve because of health importance of human In previous attempts, there had been works in detecting cavita-
tion in the pump using the noise spectrum [19]. Detecting cavita-
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 21 66405844; fax: +98 21 66419736. tion in the pump is more difficult. Pump structure generates
E-mail address: [email protected] (H. Rahimzadeh). some noise and vibration having constant sound level [20].

0041-624X/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ultras.2009.02.004
578 A.M. Jazi, H. Rahimzadeh / Ultrasonics 49 (2009) 577–582

Nomenclature

Q volumetric flow rate (m3/s) p1 upstream pressure valve (Pa)

Cm flow coefficient p2 downstream pressure valve (Pa)
Gf specific density of fluid (Pa s2/m6) Km fully developed point of cavitation
Dp pressure drop through valve (Pa) Kc initiation point of cavitation

For detecting cavitation audible sounds, acoustic emission sig- According to the current methods, it is necessary to fix down-
nals, acceleration and so on are used [21,22]. stream pressure at arbitrary one [8,23]. Therefore, solenoid valve
including proportional control system was used at downstream
2. Experiment section of test valve to fix pressure with proper accuracy.
The test valve is a 2-inch diameter valve. Upstream pressure is
2.1. Experimental setup dependent on three parameters: valve opening percentage, head of
pump and opening percentage of the solenoid valve.
Fig. 1 depicts a schematic diagram of cavitation test circuit.
Main parts are: 2.2. Experimental procedure

 2.2 kW Pump made by PumpIran, To begin with, downstream pressure is adjusted at an accept-
 solenoid valve controlled by computer, able pressure. Afterwards, the opening percentage of test valve is
 venture flow meter, adjusted. At the desired opening, minimum possible flow rate is
 Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) made by LG, set by controlling rotating speed of motor driving the pump. At this
 pressure transducer made by BD Sensor, time, acoustic emission device is used to get vibration signal of the
 tank with baffle or filter to decrease number of free bubble in valve. With pressure transducer the upstream and downstream
fluid pressures are read. The flow rate is also read by the flow meter.
 microprocessor to transform data from pressure transducer volt- After a moment, flow rate increases and the experiment is repeated
age to computer accessible port, step by step to reach the maximum flow rate of the pump. After
 acoustic emission setup made by NDTPAC. this stage, the opening percentage of the test valve is changed
and the experiments are repeated. At the last loop, the last param-
The setup shown in Fig. 1 operates in the following way: eter; i.e. the downstream pressure, is changed and all steps are
The pump drives water through a plastic tube to the setup. It repeated.
is isolated by a wooden box to avoid noise of rotating pump to In each reading of the vibration test, a file containing the wave-
affect acoustic data. Inlet and outlet of the pump is attached to form is saved on the computer. This waveform is transformed by
the plastic tube to transfer fluid and avoid vibration to affect FFT (Fast Fourier Transformer) into a usable file. The main charac-
the acoustic setup. After passing through the flow meter the flow teristics of waveform are Count, amplitude, frequency peak, aver-
reaches the test valve. Upstream and downstream pressures are age frequency and energy. Count is a similar concept to SPL
read by the pressure transducer and sent to P.C. after converting (Sound Pressure level) usually being used for detecting cavitation
by a driver device. The flow rate is also sent to the computer by in the cavitation test [20].
the driver device. The data were saved in the computer in accor- According to IEC 60534 series standards: K is the differential
dance with the test. pressure ratio being the ratio of pressure difference of valve and
Vibration signal of the valve is transmitted to the acoustic emis- difference of upstream valve pressure and saturated vapor pres-
sion device after amplifying. The signal is recorded in the com- sure at fluid temperature which is called cavitation number and
puter. Table 1 presents the characteristics of the acoustic is shown this way:
emission device. p1 p2
K¼ ð1Þ
p1  pm
Kc and Km are initiation and fully developed point of cavitation.
pm is saturated pressure of fluid at operating temperature.
In the characteristic diagram method, the point in which the
plot is deviated from the linear state, is called cavitation initiation
(Kc) and the point where flow rate (Q) is beginning to be constant is
called the cavitation fully developed point (Km).
Finally, the two methods for detecting cavitation initiation are
compared.

3. Results

3.1. Characteristic diagram result

The most important step in this method is plotting the charac-

teristic diagram of the valve in several conditions to obtain Kc and
Km which are initiation and fully developed points of cavitation in
each situation.
The relationship between the flow rate and the square root of
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of cavitation test setup. pressure difference is linear as is shown below:
 A.M. Jazi, H. Rahimzadeh / Ultrasonics 49 (2009) 577–582 579

Table 1 method, this diagram is of the most importance. If operating Kc of

Adjustments of acoustic emission device. the valve were below the diagram, cavitation would not occur and
Sample rate High-frequency Low-frequency Preampl- Threshold on the other hand, if operating Kc of the valve were above the dia-
(MHz) (KHz) (KHz) gain (dB) gram the system would be operating in the cavitation situation.
4 1200 10 40 28 The equation of this diagram is:

y ¼ 0:0005x2 þ 0:0015x þ 0:9898

Q where y is Kc and x is the percentage of the opening for a 2-inch

C m ¼ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð2Þ valve.
Dpmin
Gf
3.2. Acoustic result
In the characteristic diagram wherever the profile is starting to
exit from its linear path, it is the initiation point of cavitation,
In this method, the system was setup like the previous one, and
which is known as Kc. This point is the initiation of cavitation be-
the acoustic emission device was mounted. This system has piezo
cause when cavitation happens, bubbles are produced. Since bub-
resistive sensor detecting the vibration of valve that changes dur-
bles have less density than fluid valvepffiffiffiffiffifficoefficient (Cm) decreases ing the cavitation. After the piezo sensor was subjected to the pres-
and the relationship between Q and Dp exit from its previous lin-
sure, the output would be in voltage and proportional to the
ear state. Also, where the profile becomes horizontal, it is assumed
downstream pressure of the test valve. Like the previous method,
that if the first linear profile is continued to cross prolongation of
the data of each step were saved. In each step of the test explained
horizontal section. The point of this junction is cavitation fully
in Section 2.2, the averaged of Count Characteristic of the valve was
developed point named Km. At last, the rate of generating bubbles
calculated as mentioned before.
in valve reaches its minimum value, equal to the rate of increasing
This test would give diagrams like Fig. 4 which is Count–time
pressure difference; hence, with increasing pressure difference the
relationship for point H. Point H is shown in Fig. 5. After obtaining
flow rate is constant. This point is the fully developed point of cav-
itation because the valve has maximum bubble generating rate.
In Fig. 2, the flow rate-square root of pressure difference rela-
tionship is shown at the downstream pressure p2 = 0.02 bar and
p2 = 0.05 bar at the opening percentage of 60° from the total 720°
(8.3% opening). It is obvious that with p2 = 0.02 bar, cavitation
takes place earlier, because decreasing downstream pressure
causes the bubbles to be generated easily. However, with increas-
ing the downstream pressure to p2 = 0.05 bar, the amount of bub-
ble generation will be limited due to the fact that generating
bubble in higher fluid pressure needs more energy.
For the fully developed cavitation, it was observed that, by
decreasing the downstream pressure, the fully developed cavita-
tion number (Km) had a higher value. In fact by decreasing the
downstream pressure, the flow rate increases, meaning more pos-
sibility of bubble generation. Increasing the bubble generation
means increasing the number of possible points that may have
pressures lower than saturated pressure.
After plotting all characteristic diagrams, point Kc was gained
and plotted against the percentage of valve opening (Fig. 3). In this

Fig. 3. Kc-percentage opening relationship. If working Kc of valve is under curve, we

do not have cavitation and vise versa.

Fig. 2. Flow rate-square root of pressure different relationship at downstream

pressure p2 = 0.02 bar and p2 = 0.05 bar at opening percentage of 60° from total 720°
(8.3% opening). Fig. 4. Number of threshold crossing (Count)–time relationship for point H.
580 A.M. Jazi, H. Rahimzadeh / Ultrasonics 49 (2009) 577–582

go away together with the flow to downstream. This is called the

Flashing phenomenon.
Similar to the previous method, the initiation point of cavitation
is called Kc. This is the first point of the third region. Fully devel-
oped cavitation, Km, is the highest point in the diagram where
the valve has maximum vibration because of the exceeding num-
ber of bubbles collapsing in the downstream of the valve. In several
percentages of the valve openings Kc is acquired and after plotting,
it is seen that two methods are in good agreement with acceptable
precision.
Acoustic emission device has a minimum frequency receiving
limit of 10 kHz. Because of this limitation, we cannot detect any
cavitations in the upper opening percentage. This leads to the
important results discussed in the conclusion section.

Fig. 5. Total results of Count-K relationship for opening 60° (8.3% opening). 4. Waveform analysis

After achieving experiments and becoming aware of the accu-

Table 2 racy of the results, we go on to investigate cavitation in details.
Sample result and its characteristics for point H.
Then acquired waveforms from vibration of the valve, are trans-
37567.38947 Average count formed by FFT (Fast Fourier Transformation) and the study contin-
0.9695 k ues to analyze the waveform characteristics such as amplitude,
60 Valve opening (°)
energy, frequency, Count, etc.
41 Motor frequency (Hz)
0.05 Downstream pressure valve (bar)
1.644 Upstream pressure valve (bar)

all points, the total diagram similar to Fig. 5 will be at hand. Each
diagram contains approximately 25 points. Each point was ob-
tained through averaging almost 1000 data points.
Table 2 presents characteristics of point H. With increasing the
frequency of pump motor, the flow rate would increase as well as
the upstream pressure of the test valve. Upstream and downstream
pressure values were used to calculate K as mentioned before.
Fig. 5 presents the total results of Count-K relationship for open-
ing 60°. This curve is divided into four regions, which produces
Fig. 6. Each region is representative of a specific condition of
cavitation.
The first region shows the condition with no cavitation in
which, the vibration of the turbulent flow is negligible. In the sec-
ond one, with increasing flow rate and momentum of turbulent
flow, the vibration also increases. In the third region, cavitation is
initiated and increases rapidly to reach its maximum; therefore,
vibration increases rapidly to reach the cavitation fully developed Fig. 7. Comparison of two method of detecting cavitation.

point. In the fourth region, the downstream pressure is lower than

the saturated pressure; as a result, the bubbles do not collapse and

Fig. 8. Average amplitude of vibration signal versus K for different opening

Fig. 6. Different region of Count-K diagram for opening degree of 60 (°). percentage.
 A.M. Jazi, H. Rahimzadeh / Ultrasonics 49 (2009) 577–582 581

For waveform analysis, characteristics of a waveform must be

investigated. At first, amplitude is plotted in different opening per-
centage of the valve. It seems that with increasing K the waveform
amplitude will increase too. Water temperature is almost constant
and its pressure value is too small in proportion to the p1 therefore,
we can approximate K with p1  pp2 .
1
In according with this approximation, increasing K means
increasing p1 or decreasing p2. Both conditions mean increasing
the flow rate. Therefore, with increasing the flow rate, the wave-
form amplitude will also increase. In other words, collapsing bub-
bles in higher flow rate generate higher amplitude. This trend is
seen in each opening percentage condition (Fig. 8).
Diagrams of ‘‘average frequency” versus ‘‘amplitude” (Fig. 9)
have a harmonic trend. In this diagram, a sequence of opening per-
centage is seen from bottom to up. This diagram gives a good sense
of cavitation. In the same amplitude, cavitation in higher opening
percentage has higher frequency. It means in the same amplitude,
cavitation in higher flow rate generates higher frequency.
With plotting energy-K diagrams, it seems that with increasing
K equaling the increasing flow rate, waveform energy is also in- Fig. 11. Energy–amplitude of vibration signal diagram. In same amplitude higher
creased. In each opening percentage, this trend is demonstrated opening percentage generates higher energy level.

in Fig. 10. It seems obviously that the points in which energy is

increasing rapidly are almost close to cavitation inception points
Kc. Before cavitation inception, vibration occurs according to turbu- lent flow and momentum of flow. In this region, the energy values,
which are saved, are too small; meaning that the vibration of valve
has frequency lower than 10 kHz. In two conditions, (60° and 90°)
peaks of energy-K diagram are very close to peak of Count-K dia-
gram. It means that in globe valve and in this condition fully devel-
oped point of cavitation (Km) occurs with maximum energy in
related to the opening percentage.
It can be explained in other words that, Count, the characteristic
of waveform, can predict cavitation with good accuracy.
In the energy–amplitude diagram, several curves are obtained.
In each opening percentage, a nonlinear relation is obvious
(Fig. 11). An important point is in the same energy level, lower
opening percentage has higher amplitude except for the region in
135° curve. With another view, it is obvious that in the same
amplitude higher opening percentage has higher energy level. This
means that if we consider waveforms which have the same ampli-
tude, cavitation bubbles occurring in higher flow rate have higher
energy.

Fig. 9. Average frequency relationship with amplitude of vibration signal for 5. Conclusion
different opening percentage.
The comparison of results shows a very good agreement be-
tween the two methods, i.e. (1) characteristic diagram and (2)
acoustic emission (Fig. 7).
This diagram has the ability to demonstrate whether the valve
is in cavitation situation or not. In other words, this is the charac-
teristic diagram of the valve that predicts its possible situation.
The diagrams of the relation between waveform characteristics
give good sense for recognition cavitation. An important point of
these results is recognition relationship between energy level
and fully developed points of cavitation. It means that for decreas-
ing cavitation erosion, it is necessary to know some points: first,
knowing the relationship between energy level and erosion, sec-
ond, is the relationship between working condition (like K and flow
rate) and energy level. The important finding of energy analysis
may show that:

 Collapsing bubbles in higher flow rate generates higher

amplitude.
 In the same amplitude, cavitation in higher flow rate generates
higher frequency.
Fig. 10. Energy-K shows increasing energy level by increasing K in each opening  In two conditions (60° and 90°), peaks of energy-K diagram are
percentage. very close to peak of Count-K diagram.
582 A.M. Jazi, H. Rahimzadeh / Ultrasonics 49 (2009) 577–582

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