Influence of microstructure on mass loss caused by acoustic and hydrodynamic cavitation

The proposed study investigates the damage mechanisms of martensitic stainless steel X3CrNiMo13-4 exposed to cavitation using two complementary experimental apparatus: ultrasonic horn (MUCEF) and hydrodynamic tunnel (PREVERO). Cavitation testing has been carried out on two different metallurgical states: QT780 and QT900 corresponding to coarse and fine microstructure respectively. Acoustic cavitation erosion tests have been performed on the MUCEF equipment inspired from the ASTM G32 standards but specially designed to be installed inside X-Ray tomographs. The ultrasonic horn operates at 20 kHz and the tested specimen is located at 500 μm from the horn tip. Hydrodynamic cavitation erosion tests were conducted with classic experimental conditions of PREVERO device: a cavitation number of 0.87 corresponding to a flow velocity of 90 m.s-1 and an upstream pressure of 40 bars. For acoustic cavitation, mass loss has been identified as dependent of the microstructure while for hydrodynamic cavitation the mass loss is identical whatever the microstructure size.