High-speed photographic observation of collapse of two cavitation bubbles

Abstract

Cavitation as a hydrodynamic phenomenon exists widely in water conservancy, shipbuilding, chemical and many other industries. Previous cavitation bubble dynamic studies mainly focused on single cavitation bubbles and their interaction with the wall. This paper studies the interaction between two cavitation bubbles under conditions with or without a wall. The results show that if the inception of two cavitation bubbles is not synchronized, the cavitation bubble of early inception collapse backwards the cavitation bubble of later inception; if the inception of two cavitation bubbles is synchronized, the two bubbles collapse towards each other; if a wall exists nearby, no matter whether the line connecting the centers of the two cavitation bubbles is vertical or parallel to the wall, the two cavitation bubbles collapse towards each other and then gradually merge, and the merged collapse body quickly moves to the wall. It is suggested that, as the number of cavitation bubbles increases, the cavitation erosion effect is not simply increased proportionally. Instead, mutual inhibitory effect may be demonstrated.