The crevice model of bubble nucleation

Abstract

The crevice model for heterogeneous nucleation of bubbles in water in response to a decreasing liquid pressure is studied. The model neglects gas-diffusion effects and is therefore more suited for acoustic than for flow cavitation. It is argued that previous work has overlooked the essential requirement of unstable growth of the interface in the crevice. As a consequence, the available results are incorrect in some cases. Another feature of the model which is considered is the process by which the interface moves out of the crevice. It is concluded that, depending on circumstances, the conditions for this step may be more stringent than those for the initial expansion of the nucleus inside the crevice. Some numerical examples are given to illustrate the complex behavior of nuclei, depending of geometrical parameters, gas saturation, contact angles, and other quantities.

Cavitation inception from bubble nuclei

“…Likewise, Strasberg [6] found that static pre-pressurization up to a few bar increased the tensile strength by about 4 bar per bar of pressurization, while, at a subsequent pressure decrease, the tensile strength went down by only as much as the pressure reduction, the testing being made ultrasonically. The crevice model has received much attention and has been developed notably in [7,8]. However, though most surfaces have an irregular shape on a micrometre level [9], hydrophobic surfaces with crevices are not characteristic of solid surfaces generally.…”

Modelling of cavitation in diesel injector nozzles

“…Extensive research has been carried out on the topic over the years by numerous groups (see e.g. Harvey et al 1944;Fox & Herzfeld 1954;Apfel 1970;Kodama et al 1981;Atchley & Prosperetti 1989;Rood 1991;Meyer, Billet & Holl 1992;Milton & Arakeri 1992;Vinogradova et al 1995;Gindroz & Billet 1998;Liu & Brennen 1998;Arndt & Maines 2000;Mørch 2000;Hsiao, Chahine & Liu 2003). In the vast majority of engineering applications in which cavitation takes place, it can be argued that heterogeneous nucleation dominates, since all working fluids are expected to have a certain level of contamination and impurities.…”

Superstability of Surface Nanobubbles

“…Second, they are potential candidates to explain various phenomena associated with the liquid-solid interface, such as liquid slippage at walls [13,14,15] or the anomalous attraction of hydrophobic surfaces [1] in water. In addition, heterogeneous cavitation usually starts from gaseous nuclei at solid surfaces (see [16] and references therein), and surface nanobubbles are suggested as potential inception sites [7,17,18]. However, apart from convincing experimental evidence for the existence and stability of nanobubbles, still little is known.…”