New Mechanism of Cavitation Damage

Enormous impact pressures can develop when a vapor cavity collapses in a liquid, and it is generally held that these pressures are the underlying cause of cavitation damage of surfaces. The rapid growth and disappearance of vapor cavities have been viewed with a surface forces apparatus in liquids, and their effects on nearby surfaces at the submicroscopic level have been simultaneously monitored. The inception of cavities is intimately connected with simultaneous relaxations of high local strain energies on nearby surfaces, and in many practical situations, damage is more likely to occur during the formation, rather than the collapse, of cavities.