Nonlinear propagation and anomalous absorption of ultrasound in liquid

Abstract

Recent work has rendered possible the formulation for the nonlinear propagation of pressure waves in liquids by using the generalized Navier - Stokes equations and the modified equations of state, with the heat transfer and fluid viscidity taken into consideration. And the nonlinear approximation solution of the second order term is obtained. The conclusion concerns the acoustic pressure, phase speed, attenuation, and velocity distribution function. When the amplitude of driving acoustic pressure is higher than the cavitation threshold of the host liquid, the cavitation occurs. The cavitation bubbles will prevent the sound field from spreading in the liquid, and the acoustic energy accumulates near the cavitation zone. So when studying the transmission characteristics of acoustic wave in the liquid, the cavitation attenuation must be considered. Note that the particularity of cavitation bubble movement, cavitation bubble vibration and viscous force are simulated under the initial driving sound. Through the analysis, it is found that the transmission of sound is influenced by the viscosity of the fluid, heat transfer, driving sound pressure (amplitude, frequency, duration) and cavitation bubble in liquid. The physical mechanism is that the higher driving pressure causes the cavitation to turn stronger, the acoustic loss to be faster, the sound propagation distance to be smalletr and the vibration of bubbles to transfer energy from the fundamental wave to harmonics. As a result, the stronger absorption from the liquid causes abnormal phenomena, and the output sound is lower finally. It shows that the nonlinear radial motion of cavitation bubble is mainly responsible for the sound intensity attenuation.