The influence of air content in water on ultrasonic cavitation field

Cavitation is a complex physical phenomenon affected by many factors, one of which is the gas dissolved in the medium. Researchers have given some efforts to the influence of gas content on sonoluminescence or some specific chemical reactions in and around the bubble, but limited work has been reported about the influence on the ultrasonic cavitation field distribution. In this work, the intensity distribution of the ultrasound field in a cleaning tank has been measured with the hydrophone. After analysed and visualised by MATLAB software, it was found that the cavitation intensity distribution in degassed water was much better than that in tap water. And further study proved that degassing process can improve the cavitation effect dramatically both in intensity and scope. Finally, the cavitation fields in mediums with different gas content were measured and the specific influence of air content on cavitation field was discussed. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.