Cavitation in water under tension near the freezing point

Experiments are reported on cavitation in water at an initial temperature of 0.7°C under the dynamic tension created when a compression wave interacts with a free liquid surface. It is found that the tensile strength of water increases from 20 to 50 MPa as the strain rate is varied from 1.8 × 104 to 5.2 × 104 s−1. It is shown that the phase state of water obtained in experiments is in a double metastable region.