Boyuan Chen, SEAS '23, Chemical Engineering, Columbia University
Supervising Faculty, Sponsor, and Location of Research
Dr. Christopher Boyce, Bonomi Summer Scholarship, Columbia University
Abstract
Optical imaging experiments of two vertical gas jets injected into a liquid demonstrate that bubbles pinch off from these jets in an alternating (180 degrees out of phase) pattern. Image analysis demonstrates that this alternating pattern occurs only at sufficiently high Froude numbers and sufficiently low ratios of the separation distance between orifices to the orifice diameter. Otherwise, the bubbles from the two jets breakoff at uncoordinated times relative to one another. A physical mechanism is proposed in which the alternating pattern occurs due to a growing jet pushing liquid between the two jets towards the second jet, such that the second jet pinches off, forming a bubble. This mechanism is used to formulate a simplified coupled harmonic oscillator model which predicts qualitatively the transition from uncoordinated to alternating bubble breakoff.
Keywords
Gas jets, asynchronous break-off, coupled oscillator
Alternating Bubbles Emerging from Two Interacting Vertical Gas Jets in a Liquid (pdf)