Author(s)

P.R. Williams & R.L. Williams

Abstract

Cavitation of multigrade oils under dynamic stressing at elevated temperatures P.R. Williams & R.L. Williams Centre for Complex Fluids Processing, School of Engineering, University of Wales, UK Abstract In many flow situations, 1 iquids which are subjected to negative pressures ( or 'tension') also experience a range of temperatures. In typical organic liquids, homogeneous nucleation theory predicts that the cavitation threshold or effective tensile strength of a liquid, F, , decreases with increasing temperature by ca. 1 barI0C. But in the case of common engineering liquids such as lubricants, cavitation is likely to involve heterogeneous nucleation due to the availability of nuclei for bubble growth. This being the case, it is necessary to measure F, under pertinent conditions. This paper reports a technique which permits measurements of the effective tensile strength, F,, of degassed samples of a commercial 'multigrade' engine oil over a range of temperatures, T, representative of those enc

Keywords