Effect of wall boundary on growing and collapsing behaviors of cavitation bubble

Kawamura, Shunsuke; Naoe, Takashi   ; Tanaka, Nobuatsu*; Futakawa, Masatoshi  

A mercury target for spallation neutron source has been in operation at the J-PARC. When the high-intense proton beams hits the mercury to produce spallation neutrons, pressure waves are generated due to the abrupt heat deposition of mercury. Mercury enclosure vessel made of stainless steel with a thin wall thickness of 3 mm is severely damaged by pressure wave-induced cavitation erosion. Recently a double-walled structure with narrow gap channel at the front part of the vessel has been developed to mitigate the cavitation damage. In this study, we observed experimentally the growth and collapse behavior of cavitation bubbles in the narrow channel by using a technique of spark discharge in water and a high-speed video camera. Furthermore, the effects of flow velocity and gap width on collapsing pressure were investigated with focusing on the ratio of the projection radius to the gap width. The relationship between the narrow gap and the collapsing pressure will be discussed.