Cavitation Control Valves
This post is not about our products, but rather the engineering and analysis that goes into our products. Our technical consultant, and my personal mentor, Dr. Hans Baumann published this article back in January 2015, where he goes into detail about cavitation and it's properties. Though it has been published for nearly a year, we had not posted it here since we wanted to update all of our sizing programs to incorporate this new method for liquid analysis sizing.
The major point that Dr. Baumann makes in this article is that Cavitation is NOT a hydraulic phenomenon, but an aerodynamic one. He asserts th
at based on extremely rapid pressure fluctuations in the fluid, when at or near the vapor pressure, cavitation forms. With this hypothesis in place, we can use aerodynamic valve sizing equations to quantify the cavitation in terms of dB. Dr. Baumann has essentially changed not only the way cavitation is calculated, but our understanding of it as a whole.
The author goes on to explain how he first noticed the relationship between cavitation and aerodynamic calculations, and continues to lay out the details on how to apply this new method to current control valve sizing. This has been a breakthrough for not just control valve engineers, but all of fluid mechanics everywhere. It is my opinion that Dr. Baumann is one of the (if not the) most influencial people on control valve history. We will be posting more of his research as it is made available to the public.
Please contact Yeary Controls with any questions or comments on this post, and, do not forget that our sizing software incorporates this method, which places Yeary Controls on the forefront of control valve analysis. Let us solve your control problems for you!
