Confined Shocks inside Isolated Liquid Volumes -- A New Path of Erosion?

TL;DR

This paper explores how confined shock waves inside isolated liquid volumes can cause cavitation, leading to erosion, through interdisciplinary experiments and simulations, revealing a new erosion mechanism in high-speed impacts.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of shock confinement-induced cavitation as a novel erosion mechanism, supported by experiments and models across multiple dimensions.

Findings

Strong shock-induced cavitation observed at shock focus

Confined shocks can cause erosion in high-speed impacts

Cavitation mechanism distinct from traditional erosion processes

Abstract

The unique confinement of shock waves inside isolated liquid volumes amplifies the density of shock-liquid interactions. We investigate this universal principle through an interdisciplinary study of shock-induced cavitation inside liquid volumes, isolated in 2 and 3 dimensions. By combining high-speed visualizations of ideal water drops realized in microgravity with smoothed particle simulations we evidence strong shock-induced cavitation at the focus of the confined shocks. We extend this analysis to ground-observations of jets and drops using an analytic model, and argue that cavitation caused by trapped shocks offers a distinct mechanism of erosion in high-speed impacts (>100 m/s).