Abstract
The elastoplastic field induced by a self-similar dynamic expansion of a pressurized spherical cavity is investigated for the compressible Mises solid. The governing system consists of two ordinary differential equations for two stress components where radial velocity and density are known functions of these stresses. Numerical illustrations of radial profiles of field variables are presented for several metals. We introduce a new solution based on expansion in powers of the nondimensionalized cavity expansion velocity, for both elastic/perfectly plastic response and strain-hardening behavior. A Bernoulli-type solution for the dynamic cavitation pressure is obtained from the second-order expansion along with a more accurate third-order solution. These solutions are mathematically closed and do not need any best fit procedure to numerical data, like previous solutions widely used in the literature. The simple solution for elastic/perfectly plastic materials reveals the effects of elastic-compressibility and yield stress on dynamic response. Also, an elegant procedure is suggested to include strain-hardening in the simple elastic/perfectly plastic solution. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the validity of the approximate solutions. Applying the present cavitation model to penetration problems reveals good agreement between analytical predictions and penetration depth tests.