The past, present, and future of acoustic cavitation nucleation

Abstract

Those familiar with the field do not need to be reminded that acoustic cavitation is the cornerstone of sonoluminescence and sonochemistry. However, an equally important and often overlooked statement is that nucleation is the cornerstone of acoustic cavitation. So critical is the nature of the nucleus to the cavitation process that the acoustic cavitation threshold in water can be varied from a few atmospheres to a few hundred atmospheres just by altering the distribution and properties of the nuclei. (The acoustic cavitation threshold is the maximum acoustic pressure amplitude to which a liquid can be exposed before cavitation inception.) The fundamentals of acoustic cavitation nucleation will be presented in this paper, which is intended to be tutorial in nature. Topics include homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation, stabilization mechanisms, models of heterogeneous cavitation nuclei, and the dependence of the cavitation threshold on the properties of the nucleus. [Work supported by ONR and the NPS Res. Program]