THE GROWTH AND COLLAPSE OF VAPOR BUBBLES

Abstract

A theory is developed which describes the behavior of a vapor bubble in a liquid. Its physical basis is the assumption that the heat transfer effects which accompany the evaporation occurring at the bubble wall when the bubble grows, or the condensation that occurs there when the bubble collapses, are dynamically important. The basic equations of hydrodynamics are shown to reduce, for the problem under consideration, to a dynamic equation which describes the behavior of the bubble wall, and a heat convection equation for the liquid which is coupled to the dynamic equation by a boundary condition at the bubble surface. A solution for the heat problem is obtained under the assumption that significant temperature variation in the liquid occurs only in a thin thermal boundary layer surrounding the bubble wall. An estimate of the correction to the temperature solution is also derived. Once the temperature at the bubble wall is given, the vapor pressure within the bubble is known and the dynamic problem becomes determinate.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 01, 1954
Accession Number
AD0054059

Entities

People

  • S. A. Zwick

Organizations

  • California Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Boundary Layer
  • Climate Change
  • Coefficients
  • Convection
  • Critical Temperature
  • Differential Equations
  • Energy
  • Equations Of State
  • Heat Energy
  • Heat Transfer
  • Insensitive Explosives
  • Latent Heat
  • Radial Velocity
  • Surface Tension
  • Temperature Gradients
  • Thermal Boundary Layer
  • Thermodynamics

Readers

  • Calculus or Mathematical Analysis
  • Combustion and Flow Dynamics.
  • Underwater engineering and Marine Technology.