Interaction of planar shock wave with three-dimensional heavy cylindrical bubble

Abstract

Interactions of a planar shock wave with two-dimensional (2D), three-dimensional (3D) concave, and 3D convex SF6 cylindrical bubbles surrounded by air are studied both experimentally and numerically. The effects of initial interface curvature on the bubble deformation and wave propagation are highlighted. The cylindrical bubbles are generated by a wire-restriction method based on the soap-film technique, and their shapes are well controlled by adjusting the pressure difference across the interface. The high-speed schlieren results demonstrate that the evolving interfaces develop more symmetrically than previous studies as they are free of holder and fewer disturbance waves are generated. Typical evolution processes of the 2D bubble such as the jet formation and vortex pair formation are clearly captured. Compared with the 2D case, the oppositely (identically) signed principal curvatures of the concave (convex) boundary produce more complicated high pressure fields and 3D additional baroclinic vorticity. For 3D cases, the numerical results show that the wave patterns in the symmetry or boundary slice are distinct from the 2D case owing to the 3D movement of the generated waves, and the jet structure presents an evident three dimensionality. In particular, for the concave bubble, a certain slice between the boundary and symmetry slices presents the fastest-developing jet, while for the convex case the fastest jet emerges at the boundary slice. The upstream interface along the symmetry slice of the concave (convex) bubble moves faster (slower) than that of the 2D case, which is reasonably predicted by a 3D theoretical model.