EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF LINEAR BUBBLE DYNAMICS IN A VISCOELASTIC XANTHAN GEL

Oceanic bubble plumes caused by ship wakes or breaking waves disrupt sonar communi- cation because of the dramatic change in sound speed and attenuation in the bubbly fluid. Experiments in bubbly fluids have suffered from the inability to quantitatively characterize the fluid because of continuous air bubble motion. Conversely, single bubble experiments, where the bubble is trapped by a pressure field or stabilizing object, are limited in usable frequency range, apparatus complexity, or the invasive nature of the stabilizing object (wire, plate, etc.). Suspension of a bubble in a viscoelastic Xanthan gel allows acoustically forced oscilla- tions with negligible translation over a broad frequency band. Assuming only linear, radial motion, laser scattering from a bubble oscillating below, through, and above its resonance is measured. As the bubble dissolves in the gel, different bubble sizes are measured in the range 240 – 470 μm radius, corresponding to the frequency range 6 – 14 kHz. Equalization of the cell response in the raw data isolates the frequency response of the bubble. Compari- son to theory for a bubble in water shows good agreement between the predicted resonance frequency and damping, such that the bubble behaves as if it were oscillating in water.

U.S. Navy Office of Naval Research