Some observations on cavitation and its effects in liquid sodium

Cavitation experiments using a vibrational technique in sodium in the temperature range 1500C to 4600C have shown a number of interesting features. Perhaps the most important of these are the observations on the way in which the 'steady state' erosion rate of stainless steel was found to vary with temperature; a peak erosion rate was observed at 2150C. Cavitation inception was found to occur more readily at higher temperatures than expected; this is attributed to a gas effect which in this case was associated with the test method. Observations are also reported on cavitation noise and on the cavitation damage of Types 316 and 321 steels in sodium. (author)