X-ray phase contrast and absorption imaging for the quantification of transient cavitation in high-speed nozzle flows

High-flux synchrotron radiation has been employed in a time-resolved manner to characterize the distinct topology features and dynamics of different cavitation regimes arising in a throttle orifice with an abrupt flow-entry contraction. Radiographs obtained though both X-ray phase-contrast and absorption imaging have been captured at 67 890 frames per second. The flow lies in the turbulent regime (Re = 35 500), while moderate (CN = 2.0) to well-established (CN = 6.0) cavitation conditions were examined encompassing the cloud and vortical cavitation regimes with pertinent transient features, such as cloud-cavity shedding. X-ray phase-contrast imaging, exploiting the shift in the X-ray wave phase during interactions with matter, offers sharp-refractive index gradients in the interface region. Hence, it is suitable for capturing fine morphological fluctuations of transient cavitation structures. Nevertheless, the technique cannot provide information on the quantity of vapor within the orifice. Such data have been obtained utilizing absorption imaging, where beam attenuation is not associated with scattering and refraction events, and hence can be explicitly correlated with the projected vapor thickness in line-of-sight measurements. A combination of the two methods is proposed as it has been found that it is capable of quantifying the vapor content arising in the complex nozzle flow while also faithfully illustrating the dynamics of the highly transient cavitation features.