Numerical study of bubble rise in a three-dimensional sinusoidal channel

Abstract

The bubble formation phenomenon and its movement have numerous applications in the shipbuilding, nuclear, mechanical, and ocean industries. Thus, a complete understanding of bubble rise is of immense importance in the fields mentioned above. Although, even after a plethora of research, a significant understanding of bubble wobbling and path instability still needs to be achieved. Furthermore, the complexity increases when a bubble rises in complex channels. Although various two-dimensional studies have attempted to report the bubble wobbling in the complex channels, a three-dimensional study on it still needs to be explored. Thus, in the present study, we attempted to report the bubble rise tendency in a three-dimensional sinusoidal channel. As bubble rise velocity plays a significant role in bubble wobbling, we attempted to study the bubble's path instability and rising velocity at different Reynolds numbers (Re) and Bond numbers (Bo). The maximum bubble rise velocity was observed to increase with Reynolds number (Re) while it decreases with an increase in Bond number (Bo). Furthermore, the wobbling tendency was also less in three-dimensional cases compared to previously reported two-dimensional studies. The bubble wobbling was reported to increase with the Reynolds number with a more periodic nature of the velocity profile. Bubble wobbling increased with an increase in a Bond number less than 9. The multi-phase simulation was performed on the open-source solver Gerris. The present study unveiled various aspects of bubble rise in three-dimensional sinusoidal channels and highlighted the role of rising velocity in the path instability of bubble rise.