Effect of low-frequency ultrasonic field at different power on the dynamics of a single bubble near a rigid wall.

Abstract

Various bubble dynamics near the boundary in an acoustic field play a significantly important role in destructive erosion which has been associated with applications in industry cleaning, chemical engineering and biomedicine. But the effect mechanism of the high pressure on the boundary induce by single acoustic cavitation bubble has not been fully elucidated, which is vital for further application. The objective of this paper is to investigate the behaviors of a gas bubble near a rigid wall in a low frequency ultrasonic field. The temporal evolution of the bubble was recorded by means of synchronous high-speed recordings. Meanwhile, the time of bubble collapse, velocity of the bubble margin and the characteristics of the liquid jet were analyzed. In addition, the bubble dynamics were simulated based on potential flow theory coupled with the boundary integral method (BIM). Results are presented for a single bubble generated near the rigid wall with the normalized standoff distance γ = 1.85 under a wide range of ultrasonic power. The results show that the dynamics of the bubble can be divided into four phases: oscillation, movement, collapse and rebound. And when the applied ultrasonic power increases, the time of bubble collapse has a clear trend to decrease and the maximum velocity of the bubble margin increases apparently. Furthermore, the bubble behaviors after its first collapse, such as the number and the velocity of the effective jets, also vary evidently as the increase of the ultrasonic power. These results about bubble dynamics in ultrasonic field may be significant to determine or correct the main mechanisms of acoustic cavitation.