Oscillations of a gas-vapor bubble in an acoustic field

It is shown that at large vapor contents, as a result of the combined action of phase transitions and capillary effects, the small radially symmetric oscillations of gas-vapor bubbles in an acoustic field are unstable in amplitude. The critical vapor concentration in the bubble separating regions of qualitatively different bubble behavior in the acoustic field is determined. Expressions are obtained for the decay rate of the radial oscillations of the gas-vapor bubble and the growth rate characterizing the rate of increase of oscillation amplitude in the region of instability. It is shown that adding only a slight amount of gas to the vapor bubble leads to a marked decrease in the growth rate. It is found that in the particular case of a vapor bubble the tine growth rate characterizing the development of the instability is of the same order as the second resonance frequency of the vapor bubble. This may serve to explain why in the case of vapor bubble oscillations the second resonance effect, which has been established in a number of theoretical studies and is widely discussed in the literature, has not yet been experimentally confirmed. The problem of spherically symmetrical processes around gasvapor bubbles was posed in 1], and their small oscillations are investigated in detail in 2–4].Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 3, pp. 79–33, May–June, 1986.The authors are grateful to R. I. Nigmatulin for useful discussions.