Shock Waves and Noise in the Collapse of a Cloud of Cavitation Bubbles

Calculations of the collapse dynamics of a cloud of cavitation bubbles confirm the speculations of Morch and his co-workers and demonstrate that collapse occurs as a result of the inward propagation of a shock wave which grows rapidly in magnitude. Results are presented showing the evolving dynamics of the cloud and the resulting far-field acoustic noise

On the Acoustical Dynamics of Bubble Clouds

Recently, Morch [1,2,3,4] Chahine [5,6] and others have focused attention on the dynamics of a cloud or cluster of cavitating bubbles and have expanded on the work of van Wijngaarden [7,8] and others. Unfortunately, there appear to be a number of inconsistencies in this recent work which will require further study before a coherent body of knowledge on the dynamics of clouds of bubbles is established. For example, Morch and his co-workers [1,2,3] have visualized the collapse of a cloud of cavitating bubbles as involving the inward propagation of a shock wave; it is assumed that the bubbles collapse virtually completely when they encounter the shock. This implies the virtual absense of non-condensable gas in the bubbles and the predominance of vapor. Yet in these circumstances the mixture in the the cloud will not have any real sonic speed. As implied by a negative L.H.S. of equation (9), the fluid motion equations for the mixture would be elliptic not hyperbolic and hence shock wave solutions are inappropriate

Partial cavity instabilities

This paper reviews some of the literature on partial cavity instabilities on single hydrofoils and then summarizes the striking differences in the appearance and behavior of partial cavities on swept foils (as opposed to two-dimensional, unswept foils) as rcently highlighted by de Lange et al. (1994) and Laberteaux and Ceccio (1998). These demonstrate the importance of the spanwise evolution of the re-entrant jet, and the consequences for the characteristics of the cavity closure flow. It is suggested in this paper that several variants of this evolution can be seen in the photographs of cavitation on single hydrofoils foils and on propellers. What is common to many of these variants is that, the spanwise evolution of the cavity and the re-entrant jet can give rise to conditions at some particular spanwise location(s) which initiate partial cavity instability. In this paper we present information on an instability that was observed to occur on a cavitating propeller of modern US Navy design. Detailed photographic examinations show that the instability oscillations involve spanwise development of a re-entrant jet and behavior similar to that of the partial cavity oscillations previously observed on two-dimensional foils

Shock Wave Measurements in Cloud Cavitation

One of the most destructive (and noisy) forms of cavitation is that referred to as "cloud cavitation" because it involves a large collection of bubbles which behave as a coherent whole. The present paper presents the results of an experimental study of the processes of collapse of a cavitation bubble cloud, specifically that generated by an oscillating hydrofoil in a water tunnel. Measurements of the far-field noise show that this is comprised of substantial pulses radiated from the cloud at the moment of collapse. Also, transducers within the cavitation zone encounter very large pressure pulses (or shock waves) with amplitudes of the order of tens of atmospheres and typical durations of the order of tenths of a millisecond. These shock waves appear to be responsible for the enhanced noise and damage potential which results from that phenomenon

Pressure Pulses Generated by Cloud Cavitation

This paper describes an experimental investigation of the large unsteady and impulsive pressures which are experienced on the suction surface of both an oscillating and static hydrofoil as a result of cloud cavitation. The present experiments used piezo-electric transducers to measure unsteady pressures at four locations along the chord of the foil and at two locations along the walls of the tunnel test section. These transducers measured very large positive pressure pulses with amplitudes of the order of tens of atmospheres and with durations of the order of tenths of milliseconds. Two distinct types of pressure pulse were identified. "Local" pulses occurred at a single transducer location and were randomly distributed in position and time; several local impulses could be recorded by each transducer during an oscillation cycle. On the other hand, "global" impulses were registered by all the transducers almost simultaneously. Correlation of the transducer output with high speed movies of the cavitation revealed that they were produced by a large scale collapse of the bubble cloud. The location of the global impulses relative to the foil oscillation was quite repeatable and produced substantial far-field noise. The high speed movies also showed that the local impulses were caused both by crescent-shaped regions of low void fraction and by small bubbly structures. These regions appeared to be bounded by bubbly shock waves which were associated with the large pressure pulses. The paper also quantifies the effect of reduced frequency, cavitation number and tunnel velocity on the strength of the pressure pulses by presenting the acoustic impulse for a range of flow conditions. The reduced frequency is an important parameter in the determination of the total impulse level and the local and global pulse distribution. Large impulses are present on the foil surface even at cavitation numbers which do not result in large levels of acoustic radiation or global impulse. The total impulse increases with increasing tunnel velocity

Nonlinear Effects in Cavitation Cloud Dynamics

This paper presents a spectral analysis of the response of a fluid containing bubbles to the motions of a wall oscillating normal to itself. First, a fourier series analysis of the Rayleigh-Plesset equation is used to obtain an approximate solution for the nonlinear effects in the oscillations of a single bubble. This is used in the approximate solution of the oscillating wall problem and the resulting expressions are evaluated numerically in order to examine the nonlinear effects. The frequency content of the bubble radius and pressure oscillations near the wall is examined. Nonlinear effects are seen to increase with increased amplitude of wall oscillation, reduced void fraction and viscous and surface tension effects

Surge Instability on a Cavitating Propeller

This study details experiments investigating a previously unrecognized surge instability on a cavitating propeller in a water tunnel. The surge instability is explored through visual observation of the cavitation on the propeller blades and in the tip vortices. Similarities between the instability and previously documented cavitation phenomena are noted. Measurements of the radiated pressure are obtained, and the acoustic signature of the instability is identified. The magnitudes of the fluctuating pressures are very large, presumably capable of producing severe hull vibration on a ship. The origins of this instability are explored through separate investigation of the cavitation dynamics and the response of the water tunnel to volumetric displacement in the working section. Experiments are conducted to quantify the dynamics of the propeller cavitation. Finally, a model is developed for the complete system, incorporating both the cavitation and facility dynamics. The model predicts active system dynamics (linked to the mass flow gain factor familiar in the context of pump dynamics) and therefore potentially unstable behavior for two distinct frequency ranges, one of which appears to be responsible for the instability

Interstitial Fluid Effects in Hopper Flows of Granular Material

In recent years a number of theoretical, experimental and computational research programs (Refs. [5], [8] and [3] for example) have substantially increased our fundamental understanding of the mechanics of flowing granular material. However most of these studies have concentrated on the simplest type of flow namely that of uniform size particles in the absence of any interstitial fluid effects or other complicating factors. The purpose of the present paper is to investigate the effects of interstitial fluid. In his classic study of granular flows Bagnold (1954) observed from his Couette flow studies that viscous effects of the interstitial fluid became significant when a number (which is now termed the Bagnold number, Ba) defined as [equation] becomes less than about 450. Here [delta] is the velocity gradient or shear rate. (We have chosen to omit from the definition of Ba a volume fraction parameter which is usually of order unity and is therefore not important qualitively). In the Couette flow experiments the appropriate shear rate, [delta], is clearly defined; in other flows (such as the very practical flow in a hopper) the corresponding condition (or shear rate) in not known. The purpose here is to investigate the effects of the interstitial fluid in the primarily extensional flows which occur in the flow of a granular material in a hopper

The Noise Generated by the Collapse of a Cloud of Cavitation Bubbles

The focus of this paper is the numerical simulation of the dynamics and acoustics of a cloud of cavitating bubbles. The prototypical problem solved considers a finite cloud of nuclei that is exposed to a decrease in the ambient pressure which causes the cloud to cavitate. A subsequent pressure recovery then causes the cloud to collapse. This is typical of the perturbation experienced by a bubble cloud as it passes a headform or the blade of a ship propeller. The simulations employ the fully non-linear, non-barotropic, homogeneous flow equations coupled with the Rayleigh-Plesset dynamics for individual bubbles. This set of equations is solved numerically by an integral method. The computational results confirm the early speculation of Morch and his co-workers (Morch 1980 & 1981, Hanson et al. 1981) that an inwardly propagating shock wave may be formed in the collapse of a cavitating cloud. The structure of the shock is found to be similar to that of the steady planar shocks analyzed by Noordij and van Wijngaarden (1974). The shock wave grows rapidly not only because of the geometric effect of an inwardly propagating spherical shock but also because of the coupling of the single bubble dynamics with the global dynamics of the flow through the pressure and velocity fields (see also Wang and Brennen 1994). The specific circumstances which lead to the formation of such a shock are explored. Moreover, the calculations demonstrate that the acoustic impulse produced by the cloud is significantly enhanced by this shock-focusing process. Major parameters which affect the dynamics and acoustics of the cloud are found to be the cavitation number, [sigma], the initial void fraction, [alpha-zero], the minimum pressure coefficient of the flow, [C Pmin], the natural frequencies of the cloud, and the ratio of the length scale of low pressure perturbation to the initial radius of the cloud, [D/A-zero], where D can be, for example, the radius of the headform or chord length of the propeller blade. We examine how some of these parameters affect the far field acoustic noise produced by the volumetric acceleration of the cloud. The non-dimensional far-field acoustic impulse produced by the cloud collapse is shown to depend, primarily, on the maximum total volume of the bubbles in the cloud normalized by the length scale of the low pressure perturbation. Also, this maximum total volume decreases quasi-linearly with the increase of the cavitation number. However, the slope of the dependence, in turn, changes with the initial void fraction and other parameters. Non-dimensional power density spectra for the far-field noise are presented and exhibit the [equation] behavior, where n is between 0.5 and 2. After several collapse cycles, the cloud begins to oscillate at its natural frequency and contributes harmonic peaks in its spectrum