Stability and dynamics of systems of interacting bubbles with time-delay and self-action due to liquid compressibility

A Hamiltonian model for the radial and translational dynamics of clusters of coupled bubbles in an incompressible liquid developed by Ilinskii, Hamilton, and Zabolotskaya [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 121, 786-795 (2007)] is extended to included the effects of compressibility in the host liquid. The bubbles are assumed to remain spherical and translation is allowed. The two principal effects of liquid compressibility are time delay in bubble interaction due to the finite sound speed and radiation damping due to energy lost to acoustic radiation. The incorporation of time delays produces a system of delay differential equations of motion instead of the system of ordinary differential equations in models of bubble interaction in an incompressible medium. The form of the Hamiltonian equations of motion is significantly different from the commonly used models based on Rayleigh-Plesset equations for coupled bubble dynamics, and it provides certain advantages in numerical integration of the time-delayed equations of motion. Corrections for radiation damping in clusters of interacting bubbles are developed in the form of a time-delayed expression for bubble self-action following the method of Ilinskii and Zabolotskaya [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 92, 2837-2841 (1992)]. A set of approximate series expansions of this delayed expression is calculated to first order in the ratio of bubble radius to the characteristic wavelength of acoustic radiation from the bubble, and to varying orders in the ratio of bubble radius to characteristic bubble separation distance. Stability of the delay differential equations of motion is analyzed with four successive levels of approximation for the effects of radiation damping and time delay. The stability is analyzed with and without the effects of viscous and thermal damping. The effect of time delay and radiation damping on the pressure radiated by small systems of bubbles is considered. An approximate method to account for the delays in bubble interaction in a weakly compressible liquid is presented. This method converts the system of delay differential equations into an approximate system of ordinary differential equations, which may simplify numerical integration. Several sets of model equations incorporating propagation time delay in bubble interactions are solved numerically with existing algorithms specialized for delay differential equations. Numerical simulations of the dynamics of single bubbles, pairs of bubbles, and clusters of bubbles are used to compare the different levels of approximation for compressibility effects for low- and high-amplitude radial motion in systems of bubbles under free response and pulsed excitation by an external pressure source.