Prediction of the critical tension required for cavitation onset in transient pressure fields

The following repository contains the relevant data and code used to produce the results presented in our upcoming paper. Our work is about the phenomenon of cavitation onset. We propose a precise definition of cavitation onset and characterize the pressure conditions required for cavitation onset to occur in transient pressure fields.

In this study, we consider the case of a single gas bubble in a Newtonian liquid whose radial dynamics are modeled using the Keller-Miksis equation (Keller and Miksis 1980). The bubble is subjected to a single tension pulse considered as a canonical transient pressure field.

The repository consists of:

A first dataset, Data_Section4_SelfSimilarity.txt.

Given a properly built dimensionless framework, our work highlights that cavitation onset in a transient pressure field is self-similar. The definition of the dimensionless framework is detailed in the upcoming paper associated to this Zenodo repository.

This dataset contains for a set of dimensionless parameters the critical tension ratio required to observe cavitation onset and the normalized maximum radius reached by the bubble when applying the critical tension ratio.

Self-similarity of cavitation onset is validated by imposing a specific value of the initial bubble radius and adapting the values of the other characteristic variables representing the gas-liquid system to match the desired set of dimensionless numbers. The results obtained with the dimensionless framework are unaffected by the choice of the initial bubble radius.

A second dataset, Data_Section5_OnsetInLiquids.txt.

This dataset contains, for three different liquids (water, aluminium and ethanol), the critical tension required to observe cavitation onset (in Pa) and the maximum radius reached by the bubble when applying the critical tension (in m), depending on the initial size of the bubble (in m) and the duration of the tension pulse (in s).

We highlight that only the pairs of parameters (initial bubble size, duration of the pulse) for which the negative pressure/tension required for cavitation onset is above the fracture pressure of the liquid, estimated by nucleation theory (Fisher 1948), are stored in this dataset.

A code written in C located in the subfolder Code_CriticalTension.

The aim of this code is to obtain for a given set of properties describing the gas-liquid system (density, initial size of the bubble...) indicated by the user the critical tension required for cavitation onset and the maximum radius reached by the bubble when applying the critical tension. All details on how to use the code are given in the README.md file located in the subfolder.