Acoustic Propagation in a Two Phase Water-Air Bubble Medium. Application to Characterizing a Two Phase Medium.

This paper presents theoretical and experimental results showing the behavior of the phase velocity and the absorption in bubbly water as a function of frequency. The experimental bubble generator gives bubble media with bubble volume ratio ranging from 0 to 10** minus **4 and bubble mean radius below 60 mu m. The range of acoustical frequencies from 15 kHz to 500 kHz is sufficiently wide to include all of the bubble resonance spectrum. The acoustical propagation is a means for detecting the presence of gas bubbles in liquids, but it is also possible by taking certain precautions to determine characteristic parameters of the bubble distribution; the mean bubble radius and the standard deviation. One can see the fundamental importance of a such characterization in numerous economic domains like nuclear energy, offshore drilling operations, ocean navigation, deep-diving, and chemical industry.