Temperature Effects on Single Bubble Collapse and Induced Impulsive Pressure

Abstract

In relation to the temperature effect in cavitation damage, the collapse of a single bubble in water over a wide range of temperatures was experimentally studied. A spark-induced bubble was observed by using a high speed camera and the impulsive pressure caused by the bubble collapse was measured by means of a pressure transducer. As water temperature increases, the motion of a bubble tends to weaken owing to the increase in saturated vapor pressure of water, and the surface configuration of a bubble becomes highly irregular because of thermal instability. The impulsive pressure depends not only on the bubble size and its distance from a solid wall but also on the water temperature. When the water temperature approaches the boiling point of water, the impulsive pressure abruptly decreases with increasing water temperature. The evidence obtained seems to be associated with the known temperature effect on cavitation damage at high water temperature.