On the deformation of gas bubbles in liquids

Dominique Legendre (1) , Roberto Zenit (2) , Rodrigo Velez-Cordero (2)

1 IMFT - Institut de mécanique des fluides de Toulouse
2 Instituto de Investigaciones en Materiales (Mexico, Mexico)

We consider the deformation of gas bubbles rising in different liquids over a wide range of Morton numbers, from O(10−11) to O(1), and bubble diameters. We have collected data from the literature and performed new experiments for relatively large Morton numbers. A simple expression is proposed to describe the evolution of the bubble deformation, which is consistent with the analytical solution of Moore ["The rise of a gas bubble in a viscous liquid," J. Fluid Mech. 6, 113 (1959)]. It appears that deformation can be predicted correctly by considering the Morton and Weber numbers. The variation of the bubble interfacial area is also analyzed; this quantity is very important for the case of bubbly flow modeling but has not been measured directly to date.

Mots clés: Bubble; Deformation

Domaines: Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]

Dominique Legendre, Roberto Zenit, Rodrigo Velez-Cordero. On the deformation of gas bubbles in liquids. Physics of Fluids, 2012, vol. 24, ⟨10.1063/1.4705527⟩. ⟨hal-00921321⟩