A Model for an Acoustically Driven Microbubble Inside a Rigid Tube

Abstract

A theoretical framework to model the dynamics of acoustically driven microbubble inside a rigid tube is presented. The proposed model is not a variant of the conventional Rayleigh–Plesset category of models. It is derived from the reduced Navier–Stokes equation and is coupled with the evolving flow field solution inside the tube by a similarity transformation approach. The results are computed, and compared with experiments available in literature, for the initial bubble radius of Ro = 1.5 μm and 2 μm for the tube diameter of D = 12 μm and 200 μm with the acoustic parameters as utilized in the experiments. Results compare quite well with the existing experimental data. When compared to our earlier basic model, better agreement on a larger tube diameter is obtained with the proposed coupled model. The model also predicts, accurately, bubble fragmentation in terms of acoustic and geometric parameters.