Cavitation strength of an argon–helium solution

The kinetics of explosive cavitation has been studied by experiment in helium–saturated liquid argon. Measurements have been made by the method of pulse heating of a solution on a thin platinum wire in a negative-pressure wave. The temperature dependence of cavitation strength has been traced, the effective values of the nucleation rate J and the derivative dln J/dT have been determined. It has been found that the dissolution of helium results in decreasing cavitation strength of argon. Satisfactory agreement between data of homogeneous nucleation theory and experiment with the use of capillarity approximation in the latter, though limiting stretches (superheats) attained by experiment are nevertheless systematically lower than calculated ones.