Cavitation In Depth
Part 2 - Energy Release
Energy released by cavity collapse is intense, but on a microscopic scale. Even experienced engineers are surprised by the intensities measured and reported in the literature.
Value ranges found in the literature for cavitation phenomena are:
PRESSURE - Six sources show a range of 12,000 psi to 150,000 psi.
TEMPERATURE - Five sources show a range of 6,700 K to 10,000 K.
VELOCITY - Four sources show a range of 300 ft./sec. to 4,000 ft./sec.
VOLUME - 1,700 fold change in volume approximately.
TIME - One source reports the total time of collapse to be less than 2 microseconds, including two or more shock waves with durations of 10 nanoseconds and 40 nanoseconds each.
SIZE - One source measured the diameter of the microjet occurring in the collapse as ranging from 10-100 µm .
The data above was given to show the extreme nature of cavitation. Even if you take only the lowest most conservative values, the results still exhibit energy levels capable of damaging any known structural material, and why "cavities" are vastly different than other types of bubbles.
End of Cavitation - Part 2
