Estimation of pitting damage induced by cavitation impacts

Soyama, Hitoshi*; Futakawa, Masatoshi; Homma, Kana*

Journal of Nuclear Materials, 343(1-3), p.116 - 122, 2005/08

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2004.11.016

In order to estimate life time of the mercury target vessel of spallation neutron source which will be subjected to cavitation impacts, prediction methods of pitting damage induced by the cavitation impact were proposed. It is very important to estimate incubation time, in which plastic deformation occurs without mass loss, because the thickness of vessel is very thin. In the present paper, two estimation methods were proposed. One of them is estimatiion from erosion test of severely damaged specimen by plotting the mass loss as a function of exposure time to cavitation on the logarithmic scales. Another method is the observation method of plastic deformation pits on damaged surface at very early period in incubation stage.