Nonspherical oscillations of an encapsulated microbubble with interface energy under the acoustic field

TL;DR

This study models nonspherical oscillations of encapsulated microbubbles under acoustic fields, highlighting the influence of interface energy, shell elasticity, and viscosity on bubble dynamics and stability.

Contribution

The paper introduces a coupled dynamical model incorporating interface energy effects for microbubbles, providing new insights into size-dependent shape oscillations under acoustic excitation.

Findings

Interface parameters are crucial for finite shape oscillations in smaller bubbles.

Even modes are excited by parametric forcing of the even mode.

Size and interface parameters determine oscillation amplitude and stability.

Abstract

The practical applications of gas-filled encapsulated microbubbles involve inherent nonspherical oscillations under acoustic fields. The gas-encapsulation and encapsulation-liquid interfaces significantly affect the mechanics of the bubbles, especially of smaller radii, and their consideration is vital for mimicking the experimental setting. In this paper, we apply the interface energy model [N. Dash and G. Tamadapu, J. Fluid Mech. 932, A26 (2022)] to examine the nonspherical oscillations of an encapsulated microbubble with a radius of $2$$\mu$m and $5$$\mu$m under an acoustic field. Using the Lagrangian energy formulation, the coupled dynamical governing equations for spherical and nonspherical modes are derived, incorporating the effects of interface energy at the interfaces, shell elasticity, and viscosity. Through a perturbation analysis based on the Krylov-Bogoliubov method of averaging, a set of first-order differential (slow-time) equations is obtained to conduct steady-state and conditional-stability analysis. The stability analysis helped in determining the excitation pressure and frequency of the acoustic field required for smaller radii bubbles to exhibit finite amplitude shape oscillations. Direct numerical simulations of the governing equations revealed that the parametrically forced even mode ($n=2$) excites even modes, while the odd modes ($n=3$) excite both even and odd modes. For smaller radii bubbles, we observe shape mode oscillations of finite non-zero amplitudes only in the presence of interface parameters. The initial size-dependent interface parameter and shell viscoelastic parameters are identified as the key parameters that play a critical role in exhibiting finite shape mode oscillations of the bubble.