Acoustical Absorption and Scattering Cross-Sections of Spherical Bubble Clouds

The present work investigates the acoustical absorption and scattering cross-sections of spherical bubble clouds subject to harmonic far field pressure excitation. Bubble dynamics effects and energy dissipation due to viscosity, heat transfer, liquid compressibility and relative motion of the two phases are included. The equations of motion for the average flow and for the bubble radius are linearized and a closed form solution is obtained. Due to the presence of natural oscillatory modes and frequencies, the acoustical cross-sections of the cloud are very different from those of each individual bubble in the cloud, as well as from the acoustical cross-sections of a single large bubble with the same volume of vapor and gas. In general the acoustical properties of any given volume of the dispersed phase depend strongly on the degree of dispersion because of the complex interactions of the dynamics of the bubbles with the whole flow.