Numerical study of interactions between shock waves and a circular or elliptic bubble in air medium

Abstract

The interaction of shock waves with bubbles is of interest in a variety of areas, such as shock wave lithotripsy, cavitation erosion, and sonoluminescence. For these, the spatial technology, which is based on the five-equation model and the finite volume method, is employed to numerically study this issue in this paper. Research on the interaction between shock waves and circular bubbles indicates that the generation and distribution of vorticity have an important influence on the deformation of the bubble interface, and the vorticity will accelerate the turbulent mixing of the two-phase gas. In addition, the interaction processes between shock waves and elliptic bubbles aligned horizontally and elliptic bubbles aligned vertically in air medium with different aspect ratios are investigated. Results show that the time required to generate the transverse jet and vortex structure decreases, and the deformation degree and the collapse speed increase when increasing the aspect ratio of elliptic bubbles aligned horizontally. For elliptic bubbles aligned vertically, the position of the transverse jet is related to the aspect ratio; the greater the aspect ratio, the farther the jet position is from the centerline.