Cavitation inception of lead-bismuth alloy in an orifice

Yada, Hiroki ; Kurachi, Hiroaki*; Suzuki, Katsuaki*; Tsukimori, Kazuyuki; Hattori, Shuji*

Research on cavitation erosion in liquid metal is very important to confirm the safety of fast breeder reactor using sodium coolant and to understand cavitation erosion of spallation in the liquid-mercury target of a neutron source. At the erosion test on vibration cavitation in water and in lead-bismuth, erosion rate in lead-bismuth is ten times as fast as in water. In this study, the flowing system apparatus was developed for cavitation inception test using an orifice in liquid metal. The cavitation inception tests were carried out in liquid metal of lead-bismuth and deionized water. We discussed parameters of cavitation inception. Cavitation inception is not dependent on flow velocity both in deionized water and in lead-bismuth. And incipient cavitation number is between 0.8 and 0.6.