The differential pressure between the entrance and throat of a Venturi will
fluctuate if the liquid flowing through the Venturi contains bubbles. This
paper reports computations of the pressure fluctuation due to the passage
of a single bubble. The liquid is assumed inviscid and its velocity, assume
d irrotational, is computed by means of a boundary integral technique. The
liquid velocity at the entrance to the Venturi is assumed constant and unif
orm across the pipe, as is the pressure at the outlet. The bubble is initia
lly far upstream of the Venturi and moves with velocity equal to that of th
e liquid. Buoyancy is neglected. If the bubble is sufficiently small that i
nteractions with the Venturi walls may be neglected, a simple one-dimension
al model for the bubble velocity is in good agreement with the full boundar
y integral computations. The differential pressure (taken to be positive) d
ecreases when the bubble enters the converging section of the Venturi, and
then increases to a value higher than for liquid alone as the bubble passes
the pressure measurement position within the throat. The changes can be es
timated using the one-dimensional model, if the bubble is small. The bubble
is initially spherical (due to surface tension) but is perturbed by the lo
w pressure within the Venturi throat. In the absence of viscosity, the bubb
le oscillates after leaving the Venturi. The quadrupole oscillations of the
bubble are similar in frequency to those of a bubble in unbounded fluid; t
he frequency of the monopole oscillations is modified by the presence of th
e pipe walls. Numerical results for the frequency of monopole oscillations
of a bubble in a uniform tube of finite length are in good agreement with a
nalytic predictions, as is the computed drift of the oscillating bubble. (C
) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.