Towards nonlinear ultrasonic characterization of air microbubbles in water
Résumé
The characterization of argon microbubbles in liquid sodium is currently being investigated in connection with the development of Generation IV nuclear reactors. It seems that nonlinear acoustic techniques can be used to determine the void fraction (volumetric fraction of free gas) and the histogram of the bubble radii. We discuss the first stage of our work
here: the development of an experimental test bench suitable for generating air microbubbles in water and then measuring
them optically, before attempting an acoustic characterization. The bubble clouds generated have a radius distribution
centred on about 20 microns.