ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Phys.
Sec. Fluid Dynamics
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphy.2025.1614785
This article is part of the Research TopicPhysics of Vortices and Vorticity in Flow ControlView all articles
Molecular simulations of Cavitation Bubble dynamics
Provisionally accepted
Yuequn Fu
Eirik Grude Flekkøy*- University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
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We study the cavitation bubble that forms as a nano-scale spherical surface is detached from a flat surface using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. This investigation maps the onset and early development stages of cavitation at the nanoscale. We study the effects of variable pulling speeds and ambient pressures on the dynamics of the vapor bubble. It was observed that a higher pulling speed increases the cavitation volume but reduces the bubble's lifetime. On the other hand, ambient pressure variations significantly influence both the maximum volume and the collapse rate of the cavitation. The results are summarized in a phase diagram that displays the effects of these varying pulling speeds and ambient pressures. Significantly, the study corroborates a Family-Vicsek scaling law for the bubble volume evolution.
Keywords: cavitation, Nucleation theory, Nanobubble, lifetime, molecular dynamics
Received: 19 Apr 2025; Accepted: 30 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Fu and Flekkøy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Eirik Grude Flekkøy, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
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