A combined resonance-Doppler technique for studying bubble evolution in liquids

Gas bubbles in liquids have been studied for decades with a variety of optical and acoustic techniques. The evolution of a bubble consists of several stages, including formation and growth at a nozzle, detachment and resonance, and rise towards terminal velocity. Most existing techniques can monitor only a single aspect of the bubble behaviour. This work describes an acoustic technique to monitor all stages of an air bubble's evolution. The technique uses a combination of passive acoustic listening and active ultrasonic Doppler observation to study millimetre-sized air bubbles in liquid. A hollow cylindrical piezoelectric transducer, located around the nozzle used to produce the bubbles, detects the resonance of the bubble following its detachment. An ultrasonic Doppler system, positioned several centimetres above the nozzle, monitors both the growth and the rise of the bubble, including shape oscillations and the terminal velocity through the use of joint time-frequency analysis. Because all aspects of the bubble evolution are affected by the properties of the liquid, by monitoring the bubble evolution with this technique the rising bubble can potentially be used as a tool to characterize the liquid.