Cavitation erosion resistance of steels is important in many applications. The investigation of such resistance, under different conditions, should be very useful. Cavitation erosion tests were carried out on carbon steel AISI-1045 using an ultrasonic induced cavitation facility. Cavitation erosion pits and their effect on the localized corrosion were investigated in detail in three different corrosive media: distilled water, tap water, and 3% NaCl water.

The results of the investigation using SEM indicated the formation of three types of pits on cavitating specimen surfaces: corrosion pits, erosion pits, and erosion-corrosion pits. The corrosion pits have different shapes, however, the lamellar structure is the dominant structure, and has a large size of about 100 μm. The erosion pits that were formed by the cavitation microjet impacts have sizes of a few micrometers. The erosion-corrosion pits were similar to the corrosion pits, except the erosion pits formed on the corrosion pit surface due to dissolution. The eroded surface removal was the largest in the case of saline water.