Translation of interacting cavitation bubble in a plane acoustic field

Abstract

In a plane acoustic field, a model involving the radial and translational motions of bubble is derived, which is used to numerically investigate the translation of two interacting spherical cavitation bubbles. For the smaller initial distance between bubble centers, we investigate the dynamics of two bubbles, and find that they could come into contact but the velocities of closing to each other are different when the equilibrium radius is different. The results show that when the wavelength of plane acoustic field is much larger than the initial distance, the bubbles are approximately pulsating in phase. Moreover, the velocity of contact process of two bubbles can be changed by adjusting the parameters of plane acoustic field. For increasing in the initial distance, the bubbles would present two translation motions: close to each other for the pulsating in phase and away from each other for the pulsating out of phase, which could be verified by calculating the secondary Bjerknes force. Meanwhile, the larger the initial distance, the smaller the secondary Bjerknes force value is. Understanding the translation of bubble is of great significance for helpful explaining formation of streamer structures in ultrasonic cavitation.