Time-evolving statistics of cavitation damage on metallic surfaces

摘要

The statistics of surface damage on polycrystalline aluminium plates caused by acoustic cavitation is studied experimentally as a function of time. Cavitation is shown to produce a uniform distribution of crater-like holes with different depth, area and eccentricity. Most notably, the size distribution of such craters evolves with time from a gamma function into a power law. By contrast, on the surface of a martensitic Cu-Ni-Al crystal cavitation damage generates ramified patterns, reminiscent of a fractal object. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. [References: 23]