Predicting cavitation has proved a formidable task, particularly for water. Despite the experimental difficulty of controlling the sample purity, there is nowadays substantial consensus on the remarkable tensile strength of water, on the order of −120 MPa at ambient conditions. Recent progress significantly advanced our predictive capability which, however, still considerably depends on elaborate fitting procedures based on the input of external data. Here a self-contained model is discussed which is shown able to accurately reproduce cavitation data for water over the most extended range of temperatures for which accurate experiments are available. The computations are based on a diffuse interface model which, as only inputs, requires a reliable equation of state for the bulk free energy and the interfacial tension. A rare event technique, namely the string method, is used to evaluate the free-energy barrier as the base for determining the nucleation rate and the cavitation pressure. The data allow discussing the role of the Tolman length in determining the nucleation barrier, confirming that, when the size of the cavitation nuclei exceed the thickness of the interfacial layer, the Tolman correction effectively improves the predictions of the plain Classical Nucleation Theory.

Water cavitation from ambient to high temperatures / Magaletti, F.; Gallo, M.; Casciola, C. M.. - In: SCIENTIFIC REPORTS. - ISSN 2045-2322. - 11:1(2021). [10.1038/s41598-021-99863-z]

Water cavitation from ambient to high temperatures

Gallo M.;Casciola C. M.
2021

Abstract

Predicting cavitation has proved a formidable task, particularly for water. Despite the experimental difficulty of controlling the sample purity, there is nowadays substantial consensus on the remarkable tensile strength of water, on the order of −120 MPa at ambient conditions. Recent progress significantly advanced our predictive capability which, however, still considerably depends on elaborate fitting procedures based on the input of external data. Here a self-contained model is discussed which is shown able to accurately reproduce cavitation data for water over the most extended range of temperatures for which accurate experiments are available. The computations are based on a diffuse interface model which, as only inputs, requires a reliable equation of state for the bulk free energy and the interfacial tension. A rare event technique, namely the string method, is used to evaluate the free-energy barrier as the base for determining the nucleation rate and the cavitation pressure. The data allow discussing the role of the Tolman length in determining the nucleation barrier, confirming that, when the size of the cavitation nuclei exceed the thickness of the interfacial layer, the Tolman correction effectively improves the predictions of the plain Classical Nucleation Theory.
2021
cavitation; nucleation; rare events; phase fIeld method
01 Pubblicazione su rivista::01a Articolo in rivista
Water cavitation from ambient to high temperatures / Magaletti, F.; Gallo, M.; Casciola, C. M.. - In: SCIENTIFIC REPORTS. - ISSN 2045-2322. - 11:1(2021). [10.1038/s41598-021-99863-z]
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11573/1618495
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