SPHERICAL CAP BUBBLES

We study the rise of a spherical cap bubble in both two- and three-dimensional unbounded regions. In particular we focus on the problem of finding steady state-solutions. We assume that the fluid is incompressible, inviscid and irrotational, and use two different models to approximate the turbulent wake behind the bubble. We demonstrate numerically that in the case of zero surface tension we have a continuous spectrum of rise velocities. When we add small surface tension to the problem, the degeneracy is broken via a solvability mechanism, and we obtain velocity selection. Our results are in good agreement with the existing experimental studies.