Cavitation in an Accelerating Fluid
Start Date
April 2024
Location
2nd floor - Library
Abstract
Cavitation is a phenomenon in fluid dynamics that causes a liquid such as water to break apart during an instant of low pressure. This instant of low pressure can be caused by a sudden impulse or pressure wave; for our experiment we use an impulse from a piston below a column of water. Based on a publication by Z. Pan et al. in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) our goal was to investigate how increasing the height of the water column would increase the amount of cavitation. By using our cavitation apparatus, high speed camera, and tracker software, we found that increasing the height of the water column increases the amount of cavitation logarithmically.
Cavitation in an Accelerating Fluid
2nd floor - Library
Cavitation is a phenomenon in fluid dynamics that causes a liquid such as water to break apart during an instant of low pressure. This instant of low pressure can be caused by a sudden impulse or pressure wave; for our experiment we use an impulse from a piston below a column of water. Based on a publication by Z. Pan et al. in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) our goal was to investigate how increasing the height of the water column would increase the amount of cavitation. By using our cavitation apparatus, high speed camera, and tracker software, we found that increasing the height of the water column increases the amount of cavitation logarithmically.
