Prof. Sunghwan (Sunny) Jung
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA

The image shows a cavitation bubble (on the right) as it induces the motion of a glass particle (on the left) tethered to a wire in water.

This cavitation bubble is caused by a 50-Volt spark at t=0 ms. In turn, this spark nucleates a bubble in water, creating fluid flows around it. As the cavitation bubble expands through t=0.33 ms, the fluidflows radially outward from the cavitation thereby pushing the glass particle away. The bubble reaches its maximum size at t=0.67 ms and starts to decrease its volume. At this shrinking stage, the bubble is no longer able to maintain its spherical shape as in t=0.99 ms, and will collapse in on itself next to the particle, ³sucking² the surrounding fluid inward.

We plan to investigate the effect of particle size, density, distance from the cavitation bubble to understand the dynamics of the particle-bubble interaction.

Usage Information

This image may be freely reproduced with the accompanying credit: S. Jung/Virginia Tech

Contact Information

Prof. Sunghwan (Sunny) Jung
Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics
Affiliate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Physics
228 Norris Hall, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
Email: sunnyjsh@vt.edu
Website: www.esm.vt.edu/~sunnyjsh/