Experiment and numerical simulation investigation on cavitation evolution and damage in the throttling section of pressure reducing valve

Abstract For the phenomenon of widespread and serious cavitation damage in the throttling section of pressure reducing valve under high temperature and high pressure in the chemical technology process of petroleum and coal, according to actual coordination structure widely applied between the valve core and valve seat, the cavitation throttling section with symmetrical contraction and expansion was made, and the visualized cavitation water tunnel experimental apparatus was designed and constructed. The cavitation evolution process with time under different cavitation numbers σ was recorded by the high‐speed photography, the variation law of cavitation damage length and area with time was investigated by using aluminum film as cavitation damage carrier. Based on the experimental cavitation characteristic length L *, the evaporation coefficient F v , and condensation coefficient F c in the Zwart–Gerber–Belamri cavitation numerical model were modified, and the cavitation damage region was predicted by the gas phase condensation rate of numerical simulation. The results show that with the decrease of cavitation number, the characteristic length of cavitation strip increases; the cavitation characteristic length fluctuates greatly at σ = 1.22, and there are cavitation cloud periodic formation, shedding, collapse, and disappearance at the tail of the cavitation strip on the upper valve seat; the cavitation damage length of the upper and lower valve seat remains unchanged with time, and the cavitation damage area increases approximately linearly with time; the initial position and length of cavitation damage predicted by the gas phase condensation rate are basically consistent with the experimental results, which verifies the accuracy of the modified numerical simulation.