Acoustic emission of pulsating bubbles in viscous media

Abstract

<sec>The classical single bubble’s acoustic emission equation has been used to describe the sound filed radiated by bubble for a long time. Because this formula does not consider the influence of the medium viscosity in the process of sound wave propagation, it is more reasonable to modify it in some special cases.</sec><sec>Based on the boundary condition of the bubbles, i.e. the vibration velocity of the bubble wall is equal to the particle vibration velocity of the external medium at the bubble boundary, the acoustic wave equation in spherical coordinate system in viscous medium is solved, and the modified acoustic emission formula of the bubble in the viscous medium is given.</sec><sec>The bubble radius <i>R</i>(<i>t</i>) is obtained numerically from the bubble dynamics equation by using the fourth-fifth order Runge-Kutta method. Then the bubble's radiation sound field is obtained by using the direct substitution method and the finite element (The pressure acoustics module; two-dimensional (2D) axisymmetric geometric model) method, respectively. The modified expression <i>p</i>_present given in this work is more accurate to describe the bubble’s radiation than the classical expression <i>p</i>_classical in the cases of high-viscosity, high-frequency and long-distance. In these cases, continuing to measure the acoustic emission of bubbles by using the classical expression may have an influence on the characteristics of cavitation, such as the inaccurate descriptions of parameters such as cavitation intensity and cavitation threshold.</sec>