The collapse of a cavitation bubble in shear flows—A numerical study

The collapse of a cavitation bubble is examined by direct numerical simulations of the Navier–Stokes equations, using a finite difference/front tracking technique. Bubbles in both a quiescent fluid as well as shear flows are examined. For quiescent fluid, the results are compared with theoretical and previous computational results. For bubbles in a shear flow it is shown that large shear can increase the rate of collapse, and for bubbles near boundaries shear can eliminate the re-entrant jet seen for bubbles in a quiescent flow.