Modeling of Cavitation Bubble Motion in a Micro-Tube

The behaviors of cavitation bubble in a micro-tube are numerically investigated in the present work. The Navier-Stokes equations and volume of fluid (VOF) model are employed to track the liquid-gas interface during the growth and collapse of bubble. The results show a good agreement with experimental results in the literature, which proves the correctness and reliability of the model. Some important phenomena related to the confined bubble are observed in the study. For the bubble inside the micro-tube, liquid flows caused by the bubble motion are observed during the growth and collapse respectively. These unique flow patterns would have an important effect on heat transfer, which is totally different from the situation that a single bubble collapses near the solid wall in a semi-infinite space. On this basis, velocity vector field, pressure and temperature distributions on the wall are analyzed in details.