Levitation and dynamics of bodies in supersaturated fluids

TL;DR

This study investigates how bodies immersed in supersaturated fluids can be levitated and move dynamically due to bubble formation, with experiments and models revealing the conditions and behaviors involved.

Contribution

It introduces a continuum model incorporating surface buoyancy dynamics to predict body motion and stability in supersaturated fluids, supported by experimental validation.

Findings

Large bubbles induce body wobbling and rolling.

Surface body rotations drive periodic vertical motions.

Conditions for stable levitation depend on fluid and body properties.

Abstract

A body immersed in a supersaturated fluid like carbonated water can accumulate a dynamic field of bubbles upon its surface. If the body is mobile, the attached bubbles can lift it upward against gravity, but a fluid-air interface can clean the surface of these lifting agents and the body may plummet. The process then begins anew, and continues for as long as the concentration of gas in the fluid supports it. In this work, experiments using fixed and free immersed bodies reveal fundamental features of force development and gas escape. A continuum model which incorporates the dynamics of a surface buoyancy field is used to predict the ranges of body mass and size, and fluid properties, for which the system is most dynamic, and those for which body excursions are suppressed. Simulations are then used to probe systems which are dominated by a small number of large bubbles. Body rotations at the surface are critical for driving periodic vertical motions of large bodies, which in turn can produce body wobbling, rolling, and damped surface 'bouncing' dynamics.