Strongly interacting bubbles under an ultrasonic horn

Abstract

Numerical simulations of bubble pulsations have been performed for a system of two bubble clouds in order to study the experimentally observed bubble motion under an ultrasonic horn by high-speed video camera. The comparison between the calculated results and the experimental observation of the bubble pulsation has indicated that the bubble pulsation is strongly influenced by the interaction with surrounding bubbles. The expansion of a bubble during the rarefaction phase of ultrasound is strongly reduced by the bubble-bubble interaction. Some bubbles move toward the horn tip due to the secondary Bjerknes force acting from the bubbles near the horn tip. It has also been shown that the acoustic amplitude in the liquid is strongly reduced by cavitation due to the decrease in acoustic radiation resistance.