The detection of cavitation formation in hydraulic turbomachinery has been widely investigated due to its significant impact on their steady and dynamic operation. The aim of this study is the application of Spectral Kurtosis tool in order to effectively detect the impulsive shock waves generated during the implosion of vapour bubbles. The methodology is applied and evaluated on the vibration signals obtained from two different semi-open impellers. The results under initial cavitating conditions show that the high frequency implosions of vapour bubbles interact with the low frequency passing of the rotating blades and compose part of the vibration signal. The application of the band pass filter, with central frequency and bandwidth estimated from the Fast Kurtogram, to the original signal allows to extract this information both in time and in frequency domain, and to correlate the periodic impulsive behaviour with the blade passing frequency of the impeller. The present results support the establishment of a robust detection cavitation criterion in centrifugal pumps and show that Spectral Kurtosis is a useful tool for the prevention of related faults in centrifugal pumps.

水力涡轮机械中汽蚀形成的检测因其对其稳定和动态运行的显着影响而被广泛研究。本研究的目的是应用谱峰度工具来有效检测蒸汽泡内爆过程中产生的脉冲冲击波。该方法应用于和评估从两个不同的半开式叶轮获得的振动信号。初始空化条件下的结果表明，蒸汽气泡的高频内爆与旋转叶片的低频通过相互作用，构成了振动信号的一部分。带通滤波器的应用，中心频率和带宽从快速峰图估计，原始信号允许在时域和频域中提取此信息，并将周期性脉冲行为与叶轮的叶片通过频率相关联。目前的结果支持在离心泵中建立稳健的检测空化标准，并表明光谱峰度是预防离心泵相关故障的有用工具。