Estimation of pitting damage induced by cavitation impacts

In order to estimate the lifetime 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 the incubation time, in which plastic deformation occurs without mass loss, because the thickness of the vessel is very small. In the present paper, two estimation methods were proposed. One of them is the estimation from erosion tests of severely damaged specimens by plotting the mass loss as a function of exposure time to cavitation on the logarithmic scales. Another method is the observation of plastic deformation pits on damaged surfaces at very early stages during incubation.