Optical investigations of cavitation

This doctoral thesis describes the investigation carried out by the author in pursuit of a better understanding of the mechanism of cavitation. To create cavitation bubbles under laboratory conditions, an intense Q-switched Nd:YAG laser was used and the event was captured using a high-speed photography system. Three different aspects concerning the cavitation phenomenon were studied and they were the propagation of acoustic waves in a liquid, the resultant stress waves in a nearby solid medium and the interactions between a bubble and the nearby boundary. Optical measurement techniques, based on Mach-Zehnder interferometry, shadowgraphy, Schlieren photography and photoelasticity, were employed to assist the observation and analysis of a cavitation event. [Continues.]