Doolin,J.H., 1986,"Judge Relative Cavitation Perils with Aid of These Eight Factors", Power Magazine, Oct.,pp.77-80 gives relative cavitation erosion rate data for centrifugal pump impellers that includes separate factors for BHN,Brinell hardness numbers (for martensitic stainless steels), rotational speed and impeller material. Relative erosion rates for BHNs from 220 to 480 vary nonlinearly by a factor of about 3.6. For rotational speeds from 2000 to 10000 RPM erosion rate varies by a factor of about 2. For eight metals ranging from aluminum bronze to mild steel, erosion rates vary by a factor of 8 with aluminum bronze at 1.0 and stainless steel at 2.0. These data are reported to come from Cooper,P. & Antunes,F., 1982, "Cavitation Damage in Boiler Feed Pumps", EPRI Symposium on Powerplant Feed Pumps and from Piersall,I.S., 1974, Cavitation, July, British IME Proceedings.
Other sources indicate that cavitation erosion intensity is proportional to impeller inlet tip velocity, U1, raised to a power exponent between 5 and 7. A threshhold U1 of about 65 fps (20 m/sec) for cavitation to begin has been cited in the literature.