Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: A Lagrangian description of bubble swarms has largely eluded both experimental and numerical efforts. Now, in a tour de force of deep-learning-enabled optical tracking measurements, Huang et al. (2025 J. Fluid. Mech.1014, R1) have managed to follow the three-dimensional trajectories of $10^5$ deforming and overlapping bubbles within a swarm, perhaps for long enough to witness their approach to the diffusive limit. Their results reveal that bubble swarms exhibit a dispersion law strikingly reminiscent of classical Taylor dispersion in isotropic turbulence, but with an earlier, undulatory transition from the ballistic-to-diffusive regime. Huang et al. (2025 J. Fluid Mech.1014, R1), have helped close the loop on our understanding of Lagrangian bubble dispersion – from self-stirring swarms to bubbles in isotropic turbulence.
Source: Journal of Fluid Mechanics
Author: Varghese Mathai
Institution: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Language: English
Subfield: Computational Mechanics
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4414487100