Bubble-bubble interaction: a potential source of cavitation noise

Acceleration mechanism of abrasive particle in ultrasonic polishing under synergistic physical vibration and cavitation: Numerical study

Ultrasonic technology is widely applied in the engineering ceramic polishing processes without the limitation of material properties and ideally integrated into computer numerical control system. Ultrasonic-induced cavitation and mechanical vibration effect could accelerate the motion of solid abrasives. The individual behaviors of microjet/shockwave of ultrasonic cavitation in gases and liquids, and micro-abrasives with simple harmonic vibrations in solids and liquids has been extensively studied. To conduct a systematic and integrated study of abrasives behavior in the polishing contact region involving abrasive, surround-workpiece wall, ultrasonic physical vibration, and ultrasonic cavitation impact, a novel model integrating the free abrasive motion velocity and fixed abrasive indentation depth under multi-scale contact was proposed according to Hertzian contact theory, Greenwood-Williamson model, indentation deformation theory, the basic equations of cavitation bubble dynamics, cavitation impact control equations, and Newton's law of motion equation. The effects of ultrasonic amplitude, ultrasonic frequency, preloading force and particle size on the proposed model were investigated by theoretical analysis and numerical simulations. Ultrasonic physical vibration mainly influences the dynamic gap and further influence the number of different abrasives. Furthermore, the indentation depth of fixed abrasive depends mainly on the abrasive geometry. As the contact gap and abrasive size decrease, the indentation depth gradually decreases. Under the synergistic effect of cavitation-induced shock wave and microjet, the velocity of free abrasive in this paper is generally 0-150 m/s, and the kinetic energy of free abrasive increases roughly linearly with increasing frequency and approximately as a quadratic function with increasing particle size. Increasing the preloading force leads to a reduction in the abrasive kinetic energy. Besides, the kinetic energy induced by the shock wave has a cliff-like increment at an amplitude of 0.7-0.8 μm. It is revealed that the abrasive kinetic energy is suppressed by the cavitation bubble expansion and collapse at smaller ultrasonic pressure amplitude and surround-wall distance. This research provides a theoretical reference for the modeling of potential defects and material removal on the workpiece surface caused by abrasive motion during polishing, and reduces the trial cost for parameter optimization in actual polishing processing.

Dynamics of double bubbles under the driving of burst ultrasound

This paper investigates the pulsations and translation of bubbles in a double-bubble system driven by burst ultrasound. Results illustrate that for two identical bubbles, decreasing the frequency of burst or increasing its amplitude can enhance the pulsations and improve the translation velocities of bubbles. In a certain scope, large bubble brings about fast translation velocity, but the velocity will fall down for too large bubble, such as the bubble with ambient radius over about its resonance radius. When the ambient radii of two bubbles are different, translation of the large bubble is smaller than that of the small bubble. In addition, the effect of initial distance between bubbles is described as well. If burst serials are used, shortening the time interval between each burst and improving the acoustic amplitude of bursts are beneficial for the translations of bubbles.

Nonlinear dynamics and acoustic emissions of interacting cavitation bubbles in viscoelastic tissues

The cavitation-mediated bioeffects are primarily associated with the dynamic behaviors of bubbles in viscoelastic tissues, which involves complex interactions of cavitation bubbles with surrounding bubbles and tissues. The radial and translational motions, as well as the resultant acoustic emissions of two interacting cavitation bubbles in viscoelastic tissues were numerically investigated. Due to the bubble-bubble interactions, a remarkable suppression effect on the small bubble, whereas a slight enhancement effect on the large one were observed within the acoustic exposure parameters and the initial radii of the bubbles examined in this paper. Moreover, as the initial distance between bubbles increases, the strong suppression effect is reduced gradually and it could effectively enhance the nonlinear dynamics of bubbles, exactly as the bifurcation diagrams exhibit a similar mode of successive period doubling to chaos. Correspondingly, the resultant acoustic emissions present a progressive evolution of harmonics, subharmonics, ultraharmonics and broadband components in the frequency spectra. In addition, with the elasticity and/or viscosity of the surrounding medium increasing, both the nonlinear dynamics and translational motions of bubbles were reduced prominently. This study provides a comprehensive insight into the nonlinear behaviors and acoustic emissions of two interacting cavitation bubbles in viscoelastic media, it may contribute to optimizing and monitoring the cavitation-mediated biomedical applications.

Optimal subharmonic emission of stable bubble oscillations in a tube

The subharmonic acoustic emission of a stable oscillating bubble inside a rigid tube is investigated by direct numerical simulation. The mechanisms of bubble-tube interaction on the acoustic wave emitted by the bubble are clarified. When the bubble is small compared to the tube diameter, a critical threshold for the pressure amplitude appears beyond the point which nonspherical effects become important and bubble breaks. For a finite tube diameter, the scattered wave by the bubble is shown to generate a plane wave where the intensity of the subharmonic component becomes maximum for an optimal distance between the bubble and the tube wall. This effect seems to be directly related to the appearance of local resonance phenomena and a bubble resonance shift where liquid's compressibility plays a major role.

Study on Bubble Cavitation in Liquids for Bubbles Arranged in a Columnar Bubble Group

In liquids, bubbles usually exist in the form of bubble groups. Due to their interaction with other bubbles, the resonance frequency of bubbles decreases. In this paper, the resonance frequency of bubbles in a columnar bubble group is obtained by linear simplification of the bubbles’ dynamic equation. The correction coefficient between the resonance frequency of the bubbles in the columnar bubble group and the Minnaert frequency of a single bubble is given. The results show that the resonance frequency of bubbles in the bubble group is affected by many parameters such as the initial radius of bubbles, the number of bubbles in the bubble group, and the distance between bubbles. The initial radius of the bubbles and the distance between bubbles are found to have more significant influence on the resonance frequency of the bubbles. When the distance between bubbles increases to 20 times the bubbles’ initial radius, the coupling effect between bubbles can be ignored, and after that the bubbles’ resonance frequency in the bubble group tends to the resonance frequency of a single bubble’s resonance frequency. Fluent software is used to simulate the bubble growth, shrinkage, and collapse of five and seven bubbles under an ultrasonic field. The simulation results show that when the bubble breaks, the two bubbles at the outer field first begin to break and form a micro-jet along the axis line of the bubbles. Our methods and conclusions will provide a reference for further simulations and indicate the significance of the prevention or utilization of cavitation.

Asymmetricity and sign reversal of secondary Bjerknes force from strong nonlinear coupling in cavitation bubble pairs

Most of the current applications of acoustic cavitation use bubble clusters that exhibit multibubble dynamics. This necessitates a complete understanding of the mutual nonlinear coupling between individual bubbles. In this study, strong nonlinear coupling is investigated in bubble pairs which is the simplest case of a bubble-cluster. This leads to the derivation of a more comprehensive set of coupled Keller-Miksis equations (KMEs) that contain nonlinear coupling terms of higher order. The governing KMEs take into account the convective contribution that stems from the Navier-Stokes equation. The system of KMEs is numerically solved for acoustically excited bubble pairs. It is shown that the higher-order corrections are important in the estimation of secondary Bjerknes force for closely spaced bubbles. Further, asymmetricity is witnessed in both magnitude and sign reversal of the secondary Bjerknes force in weak, regular, and strong acoustic fields. The obtained results are examined in the light of published scientific literature. It is expected that the findings reported in this paper may have implications in industries where there is a requirement to have a control on cavitation and its effects.

Overcoming T. gondii infection and intracellular protein nanocapsules as biomaterials for ultrasonically controlled drug release

One of the pivotal matters of concern in intracellular drug delivery is the preparation of biomaterials containing drugs that are compatible with the host target.

Investigations on dynamics of interacting cavitation bubbles in strong acoustic fields

Given its importance to the dynamics of cavitation bubbles, the mutual interaction between bubbles was carefully investigated in this work. The cavitation noises emitted in different sonication conditions were recorded to study the dynamical behavior of the bubbles. The frequency spectra of the noises suggest that the dispersing state of the bubbles severely influence the oscillations of bubbles, and that the nonlinear feature of the dynamics of cavitation bubbles, imposed by the mutual bubble-bubble interaction, gradually develops with the decrease of the dispersing height. Theoretical analysis shows that the size difference between the interacting bubbles should be responsible for the increase of nonlinearity of the oscillation, and that the decrease of the distance between them could effectively enhance the nonlinear feature of the oscillation of the bubble, both of which agree well with the experimental observation.

Cavitation microstreaming generated by a bubble pair in an ultrasound field

An analytical theory has been developed to calculate the acoustic streaming velocity inside and outside bubbles for the case of a bubble pair suspended in an unbounded viscous liquid, taking into account the two predominant modes of a bubble pair: The volume and translation modes. It was demonstrated that the interaction between bubbles can affect the magnitude and direction of acoustic streaming, especially for tangential components outside of bubbles. The acoustic streaming intensifies as the radius of the neighboring bubble increases and is weakened as the distance between the bubbles increases.

Frequency spectrum of the noise emitted by two interacting cavitation bubbles in strong acoustic fields

The dynamics and acoustic emission of two interacting cavitation bubbles exposed to strong acoustic fields with a frequency of 515 KHz are investigated numerically in this paper. After comparing the dynamics of a single bubble excited by the given pressure waves, bubbles with ambient radii of 2 and 5 μm were chosen to be studied to discuss the influence of the mutual bubble-bubble interaction on the dynamic behaviors and acoustic emission of the bubbles. The results show that, aside from the external driving pressure waves, the interaction between the bubbles imposes an extra nonlinear effect on the oscillations of the bubbles and that the dynamics of the smaller bubble could be suppressed gradually with the enhancement of this mutual interaction by decreasing the distance between the bubbles. Moreover, the improvement in the oscillation nonlinearity of the bubbles due to the change in the ambient circumstance could readily be observed from the frequency spectra of the bubbles' acoustic emission, which interprets the change by exhibiting an appropriate development of the subharmonics, the ultraharmonics, and the broadband component.

Interaction of two differently sized oscillating bubbles in a free field

Most real life bubble dynamics applications involve multiple bubbles, for example, in cavitation erosion prevention, ultrasonic baths, underwater warfare, and medical applications involving microbubble contrast agents. Most scientific dealings with bubble-bubble interaction focus on two similarly sized bubbles. In this study, the interaction between two oscillating differently sized bubbles (generated in tap water) is studied using high speed photography. Four types of bubble behavior were observed, namely, jetting toward each other, jetting away from each other, bubble coalescence, and a behavior termed the "catapult" effect. In-phase bubbles jet toward each other, while out-of-phase bubbles jet away from each other. There exists a critical phase difference that separates the two regimes. The behavior of the bubbles is fully characterized by their dimensionless separation distance, their phase difference, and their size ratio. It is also found that for bubbles with large size difference, the smaller bubble behaves similarly to a single bubble oscillating near a free surface.

Interaction of two oscillating sonoluminescence bubbles in sulfuric acid

The mutual interaction of two oscillating gas bubbles in different concentrations of sulfuric acid is numerically investigated. A nonlinear oscillation for spherical symmetric bubbles with equilibrium radii smaller than 10 μm at a frequency of 37 kHz in a strong driving acoustical field P(a)=1.8 bar is assumed. The calculations are based on the investigation of the secondary Bjerknes force with regard to adiabatic model for the bubble interior which appears as repulsion or attraction interaction force. In this work the influence of the various concentrations of sulfuric acid in uncoupled and coupled distances between bubbles has been investigated. It is found that the sign and value of the secondary Bjerknes force depend on the sulfuric acid viscosity and its amount would be decreased by liquid viscosity enhancement. The results show that big change in the parameters of produced bubbles occurs in the sulfuric acid with concentrations from 65% to 85%.

Scaling law for bubbles induced by different external sources: theoretical and experimental study

The scaling relations for bubbles induced by different external sources are investigated based on a modified Rayleigh model and experimental observations. The equations derived from the modified Rayleigh model are presented to describe the collapse of bubbles induced by the different external sources such as electrical spark, laser, and underwater explosion. A scaling law is then formulated to establish the scaling relations between the different types of bubbles. The scaling law reveals the fact that the characteristic length scale factor differs from the characteristic time scale factor for the different types of bubbles. It is then validated by our experimental observations of the spark- and laser-generated bubbles as well as the bubbles induced by underwater explosions from previous published reports. With the present scaling law, studies on spark- or laser-generated bubbles as well as their applications (for example, in industrial or biomedical related applications) can benefit from the experiences and information built up over the years in underwater explosion bubbles. Conversely, it is possible to substitute a spark- or laser-generated bubble for an underwater explosion bubble in the study of a large-scale and complex physical problem.