Outer Acoustic Streaming Flow Driven by Asymmetric Acoustic Resonances

Abstract

While boundary-driven acoustic streaming resulting from the interaction of sound, fluids and walls in symmetric acoustic resonances have been intensively studied in the literature, the acoustic streaming fields driven by asymmetric acoustic resonances remain largely unexplored. Here, we present a theoretical and numerical analysis of outer acoustic streaming flows generated over a fluid–solid interface above which a symmetric or asymmetric acoustic standing wave is established. The asymmetric standing wave is defined by a shift of acoustic pressure in its magnitude, i.e., S0, and the resulting outer acoustic streaming is analyzed using the limiting velocity method. We show that, in symmetric acoustic resonances (S0=0), on a slip-velocity boundary, the limiting velocities always drive fluids from the acoustic pressure node towards adjacent antinodes. In confined geometry where a slip-velocity condition is applied to two parallel walls, the characteristics of the obtained outer acoustic streaming replicates that of Rayleigh streaming. In an asymmetric standing wave where S0≠0, however, it is found that the resulting limiting velocity node (i.e., the dividing point of limiting velocities) on the slip-velocity boundary locates at a different position to acoustic pressure node and, more importantly, is shown to be independent of S0, enabling spatial separation of acoustic radiation force and acoustic streaming flows. The results show the richness of boundary-driven acoustic streaming pattern variations that arise in standing wave fields and have potentials in many microfluidics applications such as acoustic streaming flow control and particle manipulation.