Simulation of the collapse of a vapor bubble near or attached to a rigid surface*

Several applications require a detailed understanding of cavitation and bubble dynamics in and near soft materials, such as biological tissues, polymeric coatings or biofouling. Few preliminary studies highlight the dependence of the bubble dynamics on the material properties and point to the need to develop a comprehensive multiscale theory capable of accounting for physical phenomena not present in traditional hydrodynamic cavitation. However, before modeling viscoelastic effects that would allow to extend our understanding of cavitation in and near soft materials, we focus on developing accurate algorithms for bubble dynamics in water near rigid surfaces. For that purpose, two-dimensional-axi-symmetric numerical simulations of vapor-bubble collapses are performed for microbubbles near or attached to a rigid surface and different initial pressure ratio between the ambient and the vapor bubble. A mechanical-equilibrium multiphase model and an interface-capturing scheme along with an adaptive mesh refinement algorithm are used. Spatially and temporally resolved field data are shown and compared with experimental data.