Bubble Dynamics and Cavitation Inception in Cavitation Susceptibility Meters

Abstract

To improve the understanding of the scaling effects of nuclei on cavitation inception, bubble dynamics, multibubble interaction effects, and bubble-mean flow interaction in a venturi Cavitation Susceptibility Meter are considered theoretically. The results are compared with classical bubble static equilibrium predictions. In a parallel effort, cavitation susceptibility measurements of ocean and laboratory water were carried out using a venturi device. The measured cavitation inception indices were found to relate to the measured microbubble concentration. The relationship between the measured cavitation inception and bubble concentration and distribution can be explained by using the theoretical predictions. A tentative explanation is given for the observation that the number of cavitation bursting events measured by an acoustic device is sometimes an order of magnitude lower than the number of microbubbles measured by the light scattering detector. The questions addressed here add to the fundamental knowledge needed if the cavitation susceptibility meter is to be used effectively for the measurement of microbubble size distributions.