Experimental and numerical study on the dynamic pressure caused by the bubble jet

The high speed liquid jet is an important mechanism of damage to hydraulic machinery by cavitation bubbles, as well as damage to vessels by underwater explosion bubble. In this study, the bubble motion near a wall and the pressure impulse are investigated through experimental and numerical methods. In the experiment, the bubble is generated by the electric discharge, and a high speed camera is used to capture the bubble motion. Numerical studies are conducted using the boundary element method, and the vortex ring model is adopted to deal with the discontinued potential of the toroidal bubble. Calculated results show excellent agreement with experimental observations. Meanwhile, the dynamic pressure caused by the bubble in the flow domain is calculated by an auxiliary function, which improves the accuracy of the results. A highly localized pressure region will be generated on the wall by the bubble jet. The optimal stand-off parameter (the ratio of the distance the bubble center at inception from the wall to the maximum bubble radius) for a most damaging jet formation is around 0.9.