Strong nonlinear coupling between two cavitation bubbles in an acoustic field

Abstract

Strong nonlinear coupling comes into play between cavitation bubbles as a result of their individual oscillatory behavior in a strong acoustic field. Such a nonlinearity may play a significant role in the evolution of a bubble; from its inception to the violent collapse, in particular, in a system of multi-bubbles. The nonlinearity may also drive the bubble system to a chaotic regime, hence making the system inherently unpredictable, though deterministic. Ironically, nonlinearity has often been ignored in most of the scientific studies due to the complexity that it introduces in the theory and the resulting numerical solution. The nonlinear coupling in the simplest case of two cavitation bubbles is studied using the Keller-Miksis equation (KME). The governing KME is solved numerically assuming spherical symmetry and coupling of the bubble oscillations. Also, the role of initial conditions is examined in sufficient detail to explore the additional aspects of bubble dynamics. Further, it is found that the s...