Summary of Results on Cavity Nucleation and Growth

Abstract

Grain-boundary cavitation is the dominant failure mode of many metals, alloys and ceramic materials at temperatures between about a third and two thirds of the melting temperature and at low applied stresses. Cavitation is usually associated with relatively low ductility, the fracture path being intergranular. The regime of cavitation failure is bounded at high stresses by transgranular dimpled fracture or, in some materials, by transgranular cleavage fracture. At high temperatures, grain boundary migration and dynamic recrystallization prevent the cavitation of grain boundaries. At very low stresses and low temperatures, cavitation certainly proceeds very slowly and possibly stops when no stable cavities can be nucleated.