Hydrodynamic simulation of air bubble implosion using a level set approach

The hydrodynamics of the implosion and rebound of a small (10 lm diameter) air bubble in water was studied using a three-dimensional direct numerical simulation (DNS). To study this problem, we developed a novel stabilized finite element method (FEM) employing a combination of ghost fluid and level set approaches. This formulation treats both the air and water as compressible fluids. Using this method, a transient three-dimensional (3-D) solution was obtained for the implosion (i.e., collapse) and rebound of an air bubble. These simulation results obtained were qualitatively similar to those observed/predicted in previous experimental/numerical studies. The 3-D simulations show that the conditions within the bubble are nearly uniform until the converging pressure wave is strong enough to create very large temperatures and pressures near the center of the bubble. These dynamics occur on very small spatial (0.1–0.7 lm), and time (ns) scales. The motion of the air/water interface during the initial stages of the implosion was found to be consistent with predictions using a Rayleigh–Plesset model. However, the simulations showed that during the final stage of energetic implosions, the bubble can become asymmetric, which is contrary to the spherical symmetry assumed in many previous numerical studies of bubble dynamics. The direct numerical simulations predicted two different instabilities, namely Rayleigh–Taylor type interfacial/surface and shape instabilities. During the violent collapse stage, the bubble deviates from spherical symmetry and deforms into an ellipsoidal-shaped bubble. A linear stability analysis based on spherical harmonics also indicates that an ellipsoidal bubble shape could be expected. Moreover, interfacial instabilities also appear during the later stage of the implosion process. Distinguishing these phenomena with the help of numerical simulations opens new opportunities to understand many features of recent experiments on sonoluminescence and sonofusion. 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.