Chapter 8 **Accelerated Cavitation Damage of Steels in Liquid Metal Environments 121**

Shengqiang Ma, Jiandong Xing, Hanguang Fu and Shizhong Wei

Preface

formed, expanded, and disappear.

Cavitation erosion is one of the most popular phenomena of the destruction of engineering materials working in water conditions and various kinds of liquids. The cavitation effect is defined as a physical effect, induced by a variable field of liquid pressures, where bubbles or other voids (caverns)—containing steams of a given liquid, gas, or a steam–gas mixture—are

A better understanding of all aspects related to cavitation wear will allow for more thought‐ ful analysis in the selection of innovative engineering materials additionally protected by various technologies or techniques in the field of surface engineering, and optimization of the design of constructional elements used in the cavitation environment in such industries as: river and sea transport, machining and cutting of hard metals, surface cleaning of vari‐ ous materials, chemical and petrochemical processes of, e.g., emulsification or depolymeri‐ zation, liquid sterilization processes, and also methods used in aesthetic medicine or in heating engineering, where cavitation processes are at the stage of initial investigations.

This book intends to provide the reader, not only students but also professional engineers who are working in the industry, as well as specialists, with a comprehensive overview of the state of the art in new trends, research results on issues related with cavitation, cavitation wear, and the ability to protect newly developed structural elements against the action of the cavitation environment. The chapters in this book have been written by respected and wellknown researchers and specialists from different countries. We hope that after studying this book you will have objective knowledge of new aspects of the topic concerning cavitation.

> **Wojciech Borek, Tomasz Tański and Mariusz Król** Institute of Engineering Materials and Biomaterials

> > Silesian University of Technology

Gliwice, Poland
