Cavitation behavior of various microstructures made from a C–Mn eutectoid steel

Abstract The present work analyses the cavitation behavior of steel samples with pearlitic, bainitic, martensitic, and tempered martensitic microstructures, made from an eutectoid rail steel with the help of suitable heat treatments. The cavitation erosion tests of the steel samples were performed in 3.5 wt.% NaCl solution using a vibratory device as per ASTM-G32-16. The cavitation erosion resistance of pearlitic, tempered martensitic, and bainitic steel was found to be 1.69, 2.42, and 2.80 times higher than that of the martensitic steel, respectively. Furthermore, the resistance of the heat-treated steels against cavitation erosion increases with the increase in the average of the normalized residual strain and maximum shear strength. Micro-mechanism of cavitation depends on the way the propagating sound waves generated after bursting of the fluid bubbles interacts with the microstructural constituents of the different microstructures.