Retardant Effects of Collapsing Dynamics of a Laser-Induced Cavitation Bubble Near a Solid Wall

Abstract

In the present paper, the dynamic behavior of cavitation bubbles near a wall is experimentally investigated with a focus on the retardant effects of the wall on the collapsing dynamics of the bubble. In the present experiments, a cavitation bubble is generated by a focused laser beam with its behavior recorded through high-speed photography. During the data analysis, the influences of non-dimensional bubble–wall distance on the bubble collapsing dynamics are qualitatively and quantitatively investigated in terms of the interface evolution, the velocities of the poles, and the movement of the bubble centroid. Our results reveal that the presence of the wall could significantly affect the collapsing characteristics, leading to a dramatic difference between the moving velocities of interfaces near and away from the wall. With the decrease of the bubble–wall distance, the effects will be gradually strengthened with a rapid movement of the bubble centroid during the final collapse. Finally, a physical interpretation of the phenomenon is given based on the bubble theory, together with a rough estimation of the induced water hammer pressure by the bubble collapse.