Bubbles in water under stretch-induced cavitation

When a finite sample of water experiences tension, it may develop voids (bubbles). We present here a result for the work (Helmholtz free energy change) that needs to be done for the creation of a bubble in fixed volume of water under tension and show that this result depends on the general form of stress-strain relationship. We observe that it is very important to include the curvature-dependent surface tension into consideration in order to explain bubble stability. The analytical result we obtained for the free energy allows us to make prediction for the values of critical and stable radii of the bubbles. We also performed simulations on the TIP4P/2005 water model and observed creation of bubbles in water under stretch. Combining analytical results obtained from our thermodynamic description with the results from computer simulations allowed us to determine the two parameters that describe the curvature-dependent surface tension and also to find the values of critical and stable bubble radii. We also determined the values of critical bubble radii by using mean first-passage time calculations. Published under license by AIP Publishing.