Mechanical Engineering
YANG Hanshuo, WANG Dexi, CHEN Gong, YANG Yali, JIANG Jiuchuang, YU Honglei
[Objective] Cavitation is a physical phenomenon that occurs in nature and can be observed across several fields, including materials science, geology, and biology. Early studies on cavitation primarily focused on mitigating its adverse effects, such as reduced cellular function, rock fracture, and cavitation-induced damage to materials and performance deterioration of hydraulic machinery. However, positive applications of cavitation have been identified gradually in various fields, such as enhancing material strength, facilitating chemical reactions, and removing refractory organic pollutants. The study of the collapse process of cavitation bubbles near solid surfaces provides a deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying the action of cavitation bubble collapse on solid surfaces, which can lead to better utilization of cavitation in various applications. These surfaces may include concave, convex, conical, and irregular geometries, with the surface of spherical particles being a type of convex surface. Cavitation technology has shown great promise in the treatment of oily sludge, as it can significantly improve oil recovery rates and enable the resourceful treatment of the sludge. The mechanism of cavitation disintegration of oily sludge lies in the generation of extremely high temperature, pressure, and jet velocity during the collapse of cavitation bubbles on the surface of the sludge particles. This helps to separate the oil from the solid particles, enabling oil recovery and reuse. [Methods] The dynamic behavior of cavitation bubble collapse near spherical particles was investigated to probe into the evolutionary process of cavitation bubble collapse and then to analyze the influence mechanisms of the particle-cavitation bubble distance and particle size on particle-cavitation bubble interaction. The principles of conservation of mass, momentum, and energy were used to describe the dynamic behavior of cavitation bubbles, and the volume-of-fluid method was used to accurately capture the changes in the topology of the bubble walls at the interface. The collapse process of the cavitation bubbles in the vicinity of spherical particles was numerically simulated using ANSYS software. [Results] The cavitation bubble collapses gradually near the spherical particle over time, and its collapse morphology is influenced by the distance parameter and size parameter. At the moment of the collapse of the cavitation bubble, a microjet directed toward the particle, and an extreme environment of high temperature and pressure was formed. [Conclusion] When a spherical particle is close to a cavitation bubble, the bubble collapses in a pear-shaped form. As the distance between the particle and the bubble increases, the bubble collapse takes on a more spherical shape. When the distance parameter decreases or the size parameter increases, the maximum pressure on the side wall of the particle increases. In addition, when the distance parameter or the size parameter decreases, the maximum jet velocity and the maximum temperature of the side wall of the particle increase. The collapse time of the cavitation bubble near a larger particle is longer and is significantly influenced by the distance parameter. The farther the bubble distance is, the longer the collapse time is.