Transient cavities near boundaries. Part 1. Rigid boundary

Abstract

The growth and collapse of transient vapour cavities near a rigid boundary in the presence of buoyancy forces and an incident stagnation-point flow are modelled via a boundary-integral method. Bubble shapes, particle pathlines and pressure contours are used to illustrate the results of the numerical solutions. Migration of the collapsing bubble, and subsequent jet formation, may be directed either towards or away from the rigid boundary, depending on the relative magnitude of the physical parameters. For appropriate parameter ranges in stagnation-point flow, unusual ‘hour-glass’ shaped bubbles are formed towards the end of the collapse of the bubble. It is postulated that the final collapsed state of the bubble may be two toroidal bubbles/ring vortices of opposite circulation. For buoyant vapour cavities the Kelvin impulse is used to obtain criteria which determine the direction of migration and subsequent jet formation in the collapsing bubble.