Cavitation in Centrifugal Pumps

The suction characteristics of a pump are determined by a series of tests performed at nearly constant speed. Often, however, a pump is not used at its test speed. Other pumps may be too big to test on any available rig, and all tests must be performed on a scale model. In both cases, one must resort to using model laws to estimate whether the pump will perform satisfactorily under actual working conditions.