Dynamics of gas bubbles in time-variant temperature fields

Abstract

The effect of time-variant temperature on the dynamics of a single gas bubble in a liquid is investigated. With changes in temperature, several physical parameters controlling bubble behaviour change including surface tension, diffusivity, vapour pressure and gas solubility. A single-bubble model is formulated and a numerical simulation implemented to model the radius–time profile of a bubble, across a range of initial bubble sizes and rates of heating, taking into account the aforementioned parameter temperature dependences. The model is validated experimentally in a xanthan gum gel phantom, tracking the evolution of the bubbles using digital photography and an image analysis sizing algorithm. It is shown that the natural tendency for a bubble to dissolve can be reversed by an increase in temperature, but only above a certain radius-dependent threshold rate of heating.