The issue of cavitation number value in studies of water treatment by hydrodynamic cavitation

Within the last years there has been a substantial increase in reports of utilization of hydrodynamic cavitation in various applications. It has came to our attention that many times the results are poorly repeatable with the main reason being that the researchers put significant emphasis on the value of the cavitation number when describing the conditions at which their device operates. In the present paper we firstly point to the fact that the cavitation number cannot be used as a single parameter that gives the cavitation condition and that large inconsistencies in the reports exist. Then we show experiments where the influences of the geometry, the flow velocity, the medium temperature and quality on the size, dynamics and aggressiveness of cavitation were assessed. Finally we show that there are significant inconsistencies in the definition of the cavitation number itself. In conclusions we propose a number of parameters, which should accompany any report on the utilization of hydrodynamic cavitation, to make it repeatable and to enable faster progress of science and technology development. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.