Chaos analysis of bubble formation transition phenomena on a multi-hole sieve plate

Bubble formation on a sieve plate with multiple holes is a very complicated process. At low to intermediate gas flow rates, not all holes are actively bubbling all the time. Furthermore, the interval between bubbling events m ay be highly variable. These phenomena are types of bubble formation transi tions, and they involve both active hole location and event interruption. I n this investigation, nonlinear analysis was applied to the experimental li me series data obtained from light scattering, which was sensitive to activ e hole location. The correlation dimensions and the largest Lyapunov expone nt were estimated from the delay coordinates. These findings, along with th e result of the surrogate data testing suggest that active hole location tr ansitions can be regarded as low dimensional, deterministic chaos. Effects of gas chamber volume below the sieve plate and elevated viscosity of the l iquid phase upon both the transition frequency and the chaotic invariants w ere studied. it was found that either increased gas chamber volume or eleva ted liquid viscosity may lead to less frequent active hole location transit ions.