Experimental and numerical study on the growth and collapse of a bubble in a narrow tube

The growth, expansion and collapse of a bubble in a narrow tube are studied using both experiments and numerical simulations. In experiment, the bubble is generated by an electric spark in a water tank and recorded by a high-speed camera system. In numerical simulation, the evolution of the bubble is solved by adopting axisymmetric boundary integral equation, considering the surface tension effect. The results of experiments and numerical simulations are compared and good agreements are achieved. Both of them show that a counter-jet forms and penetrates the bubble at the end of the collapse stage, before a ring type bubble forms. Under the attraction of the tube wall due to Bjerknes force, a ring jet is generated, pointing towards the tube. On the basis of this, some physical quantities like the pressure on the tube wall and kinetic energy are calculated in a case study. The effects of tube diameters and tube lengths on the bubble’s behaviors are also investigated.