Cavitation as a Mechanism to Enhance Wetting in a Mercury Thermal Convection Loop

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Abstract
Type 316L stainless steel was statically tested under cavitation conditions via an ultrasonic transducer externally mounted on a tube filled with ambient mercury. During the preliminary exposure (24 h, 20 kHz, 1.5 MPa), cavitation resulted in apparent wetting of the specimens by mercury as well as general surface roughening and wastage similar to erosion damage. Subsequently, a thermal convection loop identical to those used previously to study thermal gradient mass transfer was modified to include an externally-mounted donut-shaped transducer in order to similarly produce cavitation and wetting at temperatures prototypic of those expected in the SNS target. However, a series of attempts to develop cavitation and wetting on 316L specimens in the thermal convection loop was unsuccessful.

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