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Four material types were considered within an experimental investigation to identify the failure mechanism resulting from cavitation exposure. These materials were zirconia, silicon nitride and alumina with stainless steel as reference. An ultrasonic transducer was utilised to produce cavitation conditions and the configuration was "static specimen method" using a 5mm diameter probe, 20kHz and 50µm of amplitude. The exposure times were periods from 15 seconds to 2 hours.Experimental methods employed to characterise wear mechanisms were light microscopy, scanning light interferometry, scanning electronic microscopy.It was found that zirconia and silicon nitride demonstrated evidence of plastic deformation. Zirconia showed evidence of time delayed for transformation of phase. Alumina showed evidence of fracture type failure mechanism with negligible plastic deformation. All wear mechanisms are discussed and the materials are ranked in terms of cavitation resistance performance.

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Experiments of cavitation erosion are performed on a surface using the "stationary specimen method". A small diameter horn of 5 mm is selected instead of using the standard horn of 15.9 mm. The experiments are performed according to these parameters: an excitation frequency of the horn of 20 kHz, a gap between the horn and the specimen within the range from 0.05 to 0.5 mm and the displacement amplitude of the horn within a range of 15-50 μm. After examination of the samples, two erosion patterns can be clearly distinguished, one circular shape centred in the origin and a ring shape around. Moreover, it has been observed that the diameter of this ring shape, the cavitation ring region, is a function that depends on the amplitude and the gap. Existence of the cavitation ring region under the mentioned conditions is explained using a theoretical model based on the combination of Fluid Mechanics and Analytical Mechanics. Results after application of this model reveal the satisfactory agreement between the numerical output and the experimental data.

A review of the published literature has demonstrated a large variability and discrepancies in the measured and predicted values of piston-ring lubricating film thickness in internal combustion engines. Only 2 papers have been found that compare experiments in firing engines directly with outputs from sophisticated ring-pack lubrication models. The agreement between theory and experiment in these comparisons was limited, possibly because of inadequacies in the models and/ or inaccuracies of measurement. This paper seeks to contribute to the literature by comparing accurately calibrated experimental measurements of piston-ring film thickness in a firing engine with predictions from an advanced, commercial software package alongside details of the systematic analysis of the measurement errors in this process. Suggestions on how measurement accuracy could be further improved are also given. Measurements of oil film thickness with an error (standard deviation) of +/-15% have been achieved. It is shown that this error can be reduced further, by changes in the design and installation of the sensors.Detailed experimental measurements of film thickness under the top compression ring in a firing petrol engine have been made and compared with the predictions from a commercial, state-of-the art modelling package. The agreement between theory and experiment is excellent throughout the stroke in most cases, but some significant differences are observed at the lower load conditions. These differences are as yet unexplained, but may be due to the sensor topography influencing the hydrodynamic lubrication, lubricant availability, out-of-roundness in the cylinder, or squeeze effects. This a topic that requires further study.