Curious Case of Imploding Cavitation Bubbles: Fast Jets and Where to Find Them? (Curious)

The Curious project focuses on studying the dynamics of cavitation bubbles in highly anisotropic environments, such as when the bubbles are placed in close proximity to boundaries. Recent research indicates that the dynamics of bubbles in such environments deviates significantly from the current understanding, leading to a discovery of new exotic phenomena with a high promise and important implications for the use of cavitation in many existing and novel applications. The phenomena of cavitation and bubble dynamics have been extensively studied in engineering fields due to the negative consequences of cavitation, such as material erosion. In addition, cavitation has been extensively researched and used in various fields such as medicine, chemistry, environmental protection, and engineering. Despite the considerable progress, there is still a large gap between the understanding of the mechanisms contributing to the effects of cavitation and its application. Additionally, there exists a lack of understanding of how bubbles behave in extreme conditions. This is supported by the recent discoveries of new phenomena that occur when bubbles grow and collapse in highly anisotropic environments. Amongst others, this includes the formation of very fast jets that can reach supersonic speeds, fast and thin needle jets, bullet jets, and fast planar jets. The Curious project aims to further investigate and venture beyond these recently discovered phenomena. The overall objective of the Curious project is to significantly push the current state-of-the-art by achieving a deeper understanding of the fundamental physics of fast jet formation and exploring the conditions, under which imploding cavitation bubbles form fast, possibly supersonic jets. The research will further focus on how these conditions affect the characteristics of the resulting jets, how the developed jet characteristics affect the extreme conditions during bubble implosion, and how nearby structures respond to these conditions. There are four main objective of the Curious project, each with a designated work package: (O1) improvements of the current modeling methodology of bubble dynamics and extensive model verification and validation; (O2) experimental station setup for generation and observation of single laser-induced cavitation bubbles and fine-tuning of the experimental methodology; and investigation of bubble dynamics and fast jet formation in highly anisotropic environments, (O3) near solid boundaries and (O4) near soft matter. The Curious project builds on the project leader’s prior research in the scope of a PhD under an ERC grant and involves novel methodologies, that allow cutting edge experimental and computational research on the topic of bubble dynamics. Advanced numerical models and experimental methodologies will be further improved and fine-tuned to the phenomena under consideration, which has direct implications in the broader scientific field of fluid dynamics. In addition, an important part of the project’s outline is dedicated towards collaboration with other researchers in order to enhance the scope and impact of the proposed research. Studying bubble dynamics in never before explored environments and configurations has a high likelihood of leading to the discovery of new and exciting physics, along with the potential to revolutionize the use of cavitation in various applications. The results are guaranteed to significantly contribute to the understanding of these novel phenomena and pave the way towards cleaner, greener, and safer medical procedures, industrial processes, water treatment, and production of energy. The research is thus also significant because of the plethora of potential implications for both exploiting cavitation and preventing its unwanted effects.