A Model for an Acoustically Driven Microbubble Inside a Rigid Tube

Abstract

A theoretical framework to model the dynamics of acoustically driven microbubble inside a rigid tube is presented. The proposed model is not a variant of the conventional Rayleigh–Plesset category of models. It is derived from the reduced Navier–Stokes equation and is coupled with the evolving flow field solution inside the tube by a similarity transformation approach. The results are computed, and compared with experiments available in literature, for the initial bubble radius of Ro = 1.5 خ¼m and 2 خ¼m for the tube diameter of D = 12 خ¼m and 200 خ¼m with the acoustic parameters as utilized in the experiments. Results compare quite well with the existing experimental data. When compared to our earlier basic model, better agreement on a larger tube diameter is obtained with the proposed coupled model. The model also predicts, accurately, bubble fragmentation in terms of acoustic and geometric parameters.