The interaction of a laser-generated cavity with a solid boundary

In this paper new observations of a laser-generated cavitation bubble interacting with an inertial boundary are presented. Employing schlieren photography techniques and a thin film transducer placed on the surface of the boundary, the pressure stresses induced in the solid boundary and the surrounding fluid by collapsing bubbles, created very close to the solid surface, are experimentally measured. Liquid jet development, shock wave emission, and "splash" phenomena are identified. For different creation sites close to the boundary, the relevance of each of these phenomena with respect to potentially damaging pressure stresses in the boundary is speculated on.     

曲面固壁附近空化泡溃灭动力学的 流体体积数值研究*

流体体积法(VOF)可以便捷、高效地实现对多相流界面的捕捉和追踪。本文基于VOF方法,对单个空化泡在曲面固壁附近的运动进行了数值模拟,从实验对比、压力场、速度场、温度场演化、溃灭时间、射流速度、固壁温度等方面分析了空化泡溃灭过程的热动力学影响。结果表明,数值模拟得到的空化泡形态演化与实验观测到的现象一致,随着位置参数、泡内外压差及曲面固壁尺寸的改变,空化泡热动力学行为也将发生变化,受到流体运动及射流冲击的影响,溃灭瞬间产生的高温高压使得曲面固壁温度升高。本文研究的曲面固壁附近空化泡溃灭效应,揭示了空化泡与曲面固壁间的相互作用规律,对学术研究及工程应用都具有重要意义。     

High-speed imaging of ultrasonic emulsification using a water-gallium system

Aiming at elucidating ultrasonic emulsification mechanisms, the interaction between a single or multiple acoustic cavitation bubbles and gallium droplet interface was investigated using an high-speed imaging technique. To our best knowledge, the moment of emulsification and formation of fine droplets during ultrasound irradiation were observed for the first time. It was found that the detachment of fine gallium droplets occurs from the water-gallium interface during collapse of big cavitation bubbles. The results suggest that the maximum size of cavitation bubble before collapsing is of prime importance for emulsification phenomena. Previous numerical simulation revealed that the collapse of big cavitation bubble is followed by generation of high-velocity liquid jet directed toward the water-gallium interface. Such a jet is assumed to be the prime cause of liquid emulsification. The distance between cavitation bubbles and water-gallium interface was found to slightly affect the emulsification onset. The droplet fragmentation conditions are also discussed in terms of the balance between (1) interfacial and kinetic energies and (2) dynamic and Laplace pressure during droplet formation.     

导电流体中气泡径向振动行为的磁场控制

液态金属中气泡行为是磁流体力学的重要方面。为对磁场条件下导电流体中气泡动力学行为作全面理解,基于磁流体动力学方法建立了磁场条件下导电流体中气泡径向振动的无量纲化动力学方程,数值研究了磁场对导电流体中气泡径向非线性振动稳定性、泡内温度、泡内气压及液体空化阈值的影响。结果显示:磁场增强了气泡非线性振动的稳定性,随着磁场增强且当作用在泡上的电磁力与惯性力数量级可比时,气泡运动为稳定的周期性振动;同时,磁场引起泡内温度、泡内压力及液体空化阈值变化。研究表明,可用磁场调节和控制液态金属中气泡的运动使其满足工程应用需求。      

Visualization and optimization of cavitation activity at a solid surface in high frequency ultrasound fields

Despite the increasing use of high frequency ultrasound in heterogeneous reactions, knowledge about the spatial distribution of cavitation bubbles at the irradiated solid surface is still lacking. This gap hinders controllable surface sonoreactions. Here we present an optimization study of the cavitation bubble distribution at a solid sample using sonoluminescence and sonochemiluminescence imaging. The experiments were performed at three ultrasound frequencies, namely 580, 860 and 1142 kHz. We found that position and orientation of the sample to the transducer, as well as its material properties influence the distribution of active cavitation bubbles at the sample surface in the reactor. The reason is a significant modification of the acoustic field due to reflections and absorption of the ultrasonic wave by the solid. This is retraced by numerical simulations employing the Finite Element Method, yielding reasonable agreement of luminescent zones and high acoustic pressure amplitudes in 2D simulations. A homogeneous coverage of the test sample surface with cavitation is finally reached at nearly vertical inclination with respect to the incident wave.     

Effects of adjacent bubble on spatiotemporal evolutions of mechanical stresses surrounding bubbles oscillating in tissues

The cavitation dynamics and mechanical stress in viscoelastic tissues, as the primary mechanisms of some ultrasound therapies, are extremely complex due to the interactions of cavitation bubble with adjacent bubbles and surrounding tissues. Therefore, the cavitation dynamics and resultant mechanical stress of two-interacting bubbles in the viscoelastic tissues are numerically investigated, especially focusing on the effects of the adjacent bubble. The results demonstrate that the mechanical stress is highly dependent on the bubble dynamics. The compressive stress and tensile stress are generated at the stage of bubble expansion and collapse stage, respectively. Furthermore, within the initial parameters examined in this paper, the effects of the adjacent bubble will distinctly suppress the radial expansion of the small bubble and consequently lead its associated stresses to decrease. Owing to the superimposition of two stress fields, the mechanical stresses surrounding the small bubble in the direction of the neighboring bubble are smaller than those in other directions. For two interacting cavitation bubbles, the suppression effects of the nearby bubble on both the cavitation dynamics and the stresses surrounding the small bubble increase as the ultrasound amplitude and the initial radius of the large bubble increase, whereas they decrease with the inter-bubble distance increasing. Moreover, increasing the tissue viscoelasticity will reduce the suppression effects of the nearby bubble, except in instances where the compressive stress and tensile stress first increase and then decrease with the tissue elasticity and viscosity increasing respectively. This study can provide a further understanding of the mechanisms of cavitation-associated mechanical damage to the adjacent tissues or cells.     

Influence of different interfaces on laser propulsion in water environment

The dynamics of laser-induced semispherical cavitation bubbles are investigated by means of an optical beam deflection method. The bubbles were generated in water in the vicinity of three different interfaces: including water–air, water–colloid and water–solid, and also in the bulk. Numerical simulation shows that the propelled surface obtains more energy and longer propulsion from the semispherical bubble than from the spherical bubble during the first expansion of the bubble. The collapse time of the quasi-semispherical bubble is significantly less than the Rayleigh collapse time of the spherical bubble for all the cases considered in this work. The influence of water–air or water–solid interfaces on the collapse time of a semispherical bubble is similar to that of a spherical bubble. As the bubble energy grows, the effect of the water–colloid interface changes gradually from that of the water–solid to that of the water–air interface. In other words, the energy of the bubble dictates whether the water–colloid interface behaves as a water–solid or a water–air interface.     

New insights into the mechanisms of ultrasonic emulsification in the oil–water system and the role of gas bubbles

Ultrasonic emulsification (USE) assisted by cavitation is an effective method to produce emulsion droplets. However, the role of gas bubbles in the USE process still remains unclear. Hence, in the present paper, high-speed camera observations of bubble evolution and emulsion droplets formation in oil and water were used to capture in real-time the emulsification process, while experiments with different gas concentrations were carried out to investigate the effect of gas bubbles on droplet size. The results show that at the interface of oil and water, gas bubbles with a radius larger than the resonance radius collapse and sink into the water phase, inducing (oil–water) blended liquid jets across bubbles to generate oil-in-water-in-oil (O/W/O) and water-in-oil (W/O) droplets in the oil phase and oil-in-water (O/W) droplets in the water phase, respectively. Gas bubbles with a radius smaller than the resonance radius at the interface always move towards the oil phase, accompanied with the generation of water droplets in the oil phase. In the oil phase, gas bubbles, which can attract bubbles nearby the interface, migrate to the interface of oil and water due to acoustic streaming, and generate numerous droplets. As for the gas bubbles in the water phase, those can break neighboring droplets into numerous finer ones during bubble oscillation. With the increase in gas content, more bubbles undergo chaotic oscillation, leading to smaller and more stable emulsion droplets, which explains the beneficial role of gas bubbles in USE. Violently oscillating microbubbles are, therefore, found to be the governing cavitation regime for emulsification process. These results provide new insights to the mechanisms of gas bubbles in oil–water emulsions, which may be useful towards the optimization of USE process in industry.     

气泡在超声场中绕圈运动的高速摄影及其图像分析

借助高速摄影和图像分析技术对首次发现的附壁气泡的绕圈现象进行了实验研究,重点研究游移气泡的运动轨迹、附壁气泡的布阵过程、气泡的来源以及气泡的振动细节.研究发现游移绕圈气泡的运动轨迹呈现出不稳定、不规则、不光滑的特点.阵列气泡源于游移气泡,而游移气泡变成阵列气泡的方式主要是通过合并增大体积,从而减小所受的Bjerknes力,降低活性的方式实现的.游移气泡源于ALF(acoustic lichtenberg figure)空化云中大量空泡的合并,使以径向振动为主的空泡逐渐过渡到以表面波动为主的气泡.阵列气泡在Bjerknes力的作用下呈现出规则的表面波动,而体积更小受力更大的游移空泡的表面完全失稳,呈现极不规则的形貌,并对附近阵列气泡的表面波动产生影响.阵列气泡呈现出十分规则的排布,相邻阵列气泡之间的振动相位是相反的,表现为相互排斥.     

Computational Simulation of Sodium Doublet Line Intensities in Multibubble Sonoluminescence

We perform a computational simulation of the fluid dynamics of sodium doublet(Na-D)line emissions from one sonoluminescing bubble among the cavitation bubbles in argon-saturated Na hydroxide(NaOH)aqueous solutions.Our simulation includes the distributions of acoustic pressures and the dynamics of cavitation bubbles by numerically solving the cavitation dynamic equation and bubble-pulsation equation.The simulation results demonstrate that when the maximum temperature inside a luminescing bubble is relatively low,two emission peaks from excited Na are prominent within the emission spectra,at wavelengths of 589.0 and 589.6 nm.As the maximum temperature of the bubble increases,the two peaks merge into one peak and the full width at half maximum of this peak increases.These calculations match with the observations of Na-D line emissions from MBSL occurring in aqueous solutions of NaOH under an argon gas.     

Influence of bubble clustering on multibubble sonoluminescence

Influence of clustering of cavitation bubbles on multibubble sonoluminescence (MBSL) in standing wave fields is studied through measurement of MBSL intensity with a photomultiplier tube and observation of corresponding bubble behavior with a high-speed video camera and an intensified charge-coupled device one. It is clarified that, when the SL is quenched suddenly at excessive ultrasonic power, the behavior of bubbles clearly changes; the bubbles which form dendritic branches of filaments change into clusters due to the secondary Bjerknes force. The cluster is composed of several bubbles surrounded by many tiny bubbles, in which bubbles repeatedly coalesce and fragment, and run away from pressure antinodes. When the clusters are broken up by forced fluid motion, the quenching of MBSL is suppressed.     

The acoustic emissions of cavitation bubbles in stretched vortices

Pairs of unequal strength, counter-rotating vortices were produced in order to examine the inception, dynamics, and acoustic emission of cavitation bubbles in rapidly stretching vortices. The acoustic signatures of these cavitation bubbles were characterized during their inception, growth, and collapse. Growing and collapsing bubbles often produced a sharp, broadband, pop sound. The spectrum of these bubbles, and the peak resonant frequency can generally be related to quiescent flow bubble dynamics and corresponding resonant frequencies. However, some elongated cavitation bubbles produced a short tonal burst, or chirp, with frequencies on the order of a few kilohertz. Theses frequencies are too low to be related to resonant frequencies of a bubble in a quiescent flow. Instead, the frequency content of the acoustic signal during bubble inception and growth is related to the volumetric oscillations of the bubble while it interacted with vortical flow that surrounds the bubble (i.e., the resonant frequency of the vortex-bubble system). A relationship was determined between the observed peak frequency of the oscillations, the highly stretched vortex properties, and the water nuclei content. It was found that different cavitation spectra could relate to different flow and fluid properties and therefore would not scale in the same manner.     

Cavitation erosion by shockwave self-focusing of a single bubble

The ability of cavitation bubbles to effectively focus energy is made responsible for cavitation erosion, traumatic brain injury, and even for catalyse chemical reactions. Yet, the mechanism through which material is eroded remains vague, and the extremely fast and localized dynamics that lead to material damage has not been resolved. Here, we reveal the decisive mechanism that leads to energy focusing during the non-spherical collapse of cavitation bubbles and eventually results to the erosion of hardened metals. We show that a single cavitation bubble at ambient pressure close to a metal surface causes erosion only if a non-axisymmetric energy self-focusing is at play. The bubble during its collapse emits shockwaves that under certain conditions converge to a single point where the remaining gas phase is driven to a shockwave-intensified collapse. We resolve the conditions under which this self-focusing enhances the collapse and damages the solid. High-speed imaging of bubble and shock wave dynamics at sub-picosecond exposure times is correlated to the shockwaves recorded with large bandwidth hydrophones. The material damage from several metallic materials is detected in situ and quantified ex-situ via scanning electron microscopy and confocal profilometry. With this knowledge, approaches to mitigate cavitation erosion or to even enhance the energy focusing are within reach.     

Advancement of high power ultrasound technology for the destruction of surface active waterborne contaminants

The current paper explores recent advances in sonochemical techniques to improve the ultrasound-mediated degradation efficiency of surface active, waterborne contaminants. Sonochemical degradation efficiency of surface active contaminants generally has a strong dependence on the concentration of contaminant at the gas/solution surface of cavitation bubbles. This in turn depends on the thermodynamic and diffusion/kinetic-controlled adsorption properties of the surfactant at the rapidly pulsating gas/solution surface of acoustic cavitation bubbles. The adsorption properties of surfactants can be exploited to enhance their sonochemical decomposition by varying ultrasound exposure parameters such that changes in the nature of the bubble population (especially the bubble life-time and rate of pulsations) cause changes in the amount of surfactant that adsorbs to the gas/solution interface of cavitation bubbles. Herein we describe recent results on the effect of ultrasound frequency and pulsing mode on sonochemical degradation of surfactants in aqueous solutions and show how the exposure parameters can be adjusted in ways to produce more efficient decomposition of contaminants, even under exposure conditions where seemingly poor sonochemical activity is detected in the bulk solution. The relevance of these results to scale-up of ultrasound decontamination processes is discussed.     

Application of salicylic acid dosimetry to evaluate hydrodynamic cavitation as an advanced oxidation process

The generation of OH* radicals inside hydrodynamic cavitation bubbles was monitored using a salicylic acid dosimeter. The reaction of this scavenger with OH* produces 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid (2,5-DHB) and, to a lesser degree, 2,3-DHB. The former, is a specific reaction product that can be determined with a very high sensitivity using HPLC-IF. This method has been applied to study the influence of the flow-rate and the solution pH for a given cavitation chamber geometry. The salicylic dosimetry has proven especially suitable for the characteristic time scales of hydrodynamic cavitation (higher than those of ultrasonic cavitation), which usually gives rise to recombination of radicals before they can reach the liquid-phase. Working at low pH the hydrophobic salicylic acid migrates to the gas-liquid interface and reacts with the OH* radicals, increasing the trapping efficiency of the dosimeter. Hydrodynamic cavitation works as a very low frequency sonochemical reactor, and therefore its potential as an Advanced Oxidation Process might be limited to reactions at the gas-liquid interface and inner bubble (i.e. with volatiles and/or hydrophobic substances).     

Sonochemical and high-speed optical characterization of cavitation generated by an ultrasonically oscillating dental file in root canal models

Ultrasonically Activated Irrigation makes use of an ultrasonically oscillating file in order to improve the cleaning of the root canal during a root canal treatment. Cavitation has been associated with these oscillating files, but the nature and characteristics of the cavitating bubbles were not yet fully elucidated. Using sensitive equipment, the sonoluminescence (SL) and sonochemiluminescence (SCL) around these files have been measured in this study, showing that cavitation occurs even at very low power settings. Luminol photography and high-speed visualizations provided information on the spatial and temporal distribution of the cavitation bubbles. A large bubble cloud was observed at the tip of the files, but this was found not to contribute to SCL. Rather, smaller, individual bubbles observed at antinodes of the oscillating file with a smaller amplitude were leading to SCL. Confinements of the size of bovine and human root canals increased the amount of SL and SCL. The root canal models also showed the occurrence of air entrainment, resulting in the generation of stable bubbles, and of droplets, near the air–liquid interface and leading eventually to a loss of the liquid.     

Waveform analysis of cavitation in a globe valve

Cavitation is a dynamic phenomenon occurring in fluid flows, where the local static pressure is lower than the saturated vapor pressure at working temperature. The growth and collapse of cavitation bubbles leads to corrosion and pitting of metal surfaces. Considering the fact that erosion by cavitation is still one of the current problems, it is important to detect the initiation, fully developed point of cavitation and to analyze its characteristics. In this research, an attempt is made to study acoustic waveform of cavitation in the globe valve. The waveform is transformed by Fast Fourier Transform and its important parameters such as amplitude, energy, frequency and so on are analyzed.     

采用遗传算法对压力脉动过程中气泡模型参数的辨识

流动液体中的压力变化会引起气泡和气穴的产生及破灭,而气泡和气穴又会对液体的流动产生影响及压力变化.为了合理预测流控系统瞬态压力脉动过程中气泡和气穴的体积变化及其对脉动传播过程的影响,基于气泡溶解和析出的物理过程,建立了压力脉动过程中气泡和气穴产生及破灭的数学模型,并提出采用遗传算法对气泡模型中初始气泡体积、气体溶解和析出时间常数进行参数辨识.以一段液压油管路为研究对象,对管路中伴随气泡和气穴的瞬态压力脉动过程进行仿真及实验研究.利用仿真及实验结果,验证了采用遗传算法对气泡模型进行参数辨识的可行性. 关键词： 气泡 气穴 压力脉动 参数辨识     

Effects of medium viscoelasticity on bubble collapse strength of interacting polydisperse bubbles

Due to its physical and/or chemical effects, acoustic cavitation plays a crucial role in various emerging applications ranging from advanced materials to biomedicine. The cavitation bubbles usually undergo oscillatory dynamics and violent collapse within a viscoelastic medium, which are closely related to the cavitation-associated effects. However, the role of medium viscoelasticity on the cavitation dynamics has received little attention, especially for the bubble collapse strength during multi-bubble cavitation with the complex interactions between size polydisperse bubbles. In this study, modified Gilmore equations accounting for inter-bubble interactions were coupled with the Zener viscoelastic model to simulate the dynamics of multi-bubble cavitation in viscoelastic media. Results showed that the cavitation dynamics (e.g., acoustic resonant response, nonlinear oscillation behavior and bubble collapse strength) of differently-sized bubbles depend differently on the medium viscoelasticity and each bubble is affected by its neighboring bubbles to a different degree. More specifically, increasing medium viscosity drastically dampens the bubble dynamics and weakens the bubble collapse strength, while medium elasticity mainly affects the bubble resonance at which the bubble collapse strength is maximum. Differently-sized bubbles can achieve resonances and even subharmonic resonances at high driving acoustic pressures as the elasticity changes to certain values, and the resonance frequency of each bubble increases with the elasticity increasing. For the interactions between the size polydisperse bubbles, it indicated that the largest bubble generally has a dominant effect on the dynamics of smaller ones while in turn it is almost unaffected, exhibiting a pattern of destructive and constructive interactions. This study provides a valuable insight into the acoustic cavitation dynamics of multiple interacting polydisperse bubbles in viscoelastic media, which may offer a potential of controlling the medium viscoelasticity to appropriately manipulate the dynamics of multi-bubble cavitation for achieving proper cavitation effects according to the desired application.