Dynamics of single cavitation bubble collapse jet under particle-wall synergy

Abstract

The interaction between a particle and a cavitation bubble significantly influences the erosive effect on the wall surface of flow passage components in fluid machinery. This paper investigates the dynamics of a single bubble collapse jet under the synergetic effects of a particle and a wall, using Kelvin impulse theory and high-speed photographic experiments. A theoretical model to predict the intensity and direction of the collapse jet at arbitrary locations near the particle and the wall is constructed on the basis of the image method and Weiss's theorem. The accuracy of the model is verified by comparison with a large number of experimental results. The mechanisms underlying the relative contributions of the particle and wall to the behavior of jet intensity and direction are explored. The effects of key parameters on jet intensity and direction are also quantitatively analyzed, including the relative positions of the particle, wall, and the bubble and the dimensionless particle radius. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) the particle will cause a deflection in the direction of the collapse jet near the wall, leading to the formation of a jet attraction zone. The proposed theoretical model effectively predicts the spatial location of this zone. (2) There exists a region in which the jet is weak, and there is a jet equilibrium point with zero impulse between the particle and the wall. The position of this equilibrium point gradually approaches the wall in a nonlinear manner with increasing particle size and in a quasi-linear manner with decreasing particle–wall distance. (3) When the particle and the bubble are the same distance from the wall, the jet direction gradually changes from toward the particle to vertical to the wall in a nonlinear manner as the bubble–particle distance increases. Moreover, the effective range of the particle's influence on the jet direction decreases as the particle–wall distance decreases.