Analysis of dynamic characteristics of bubble rise under a free surface

Abstract

The rising process of a bubble occurs in several natural and industrial apparatuses. This process is computationally studied using the front tracking method for a moving interface whose surface properties are solved in terms of an immersed-boundary method. The results show that the free interface does not influence the bubble before the centroid velocity of the bubble reaches the terminal velocity, which reaches a stable value or fluctuates at it, with the distance h (between the centroid of the bubble and the free surface) reaching a certain value. When the Reynolds number increases, the time to reach terminal velocity will decrease, and the influence of the viscous factor on the terminal velocity is also weakened. The dramatic interaction between a bubble and free surface is beneficial to accelerate film draining out. It is also shown that the shape of the bubble gradually becomes an ellipse as the Weber number (We) decreases, and it is beneficial to reduce the resistance of the bubble. The free surface could accelerate the bubble breaking at high We values.