COLLAPSE OF SPHERICAL BUBBLES IN VISCOELASTIC LIQUIDS

An analysis is given of the collapse of a spherical bubble in a large body of an incompressible viscoelastic liquid. In a wide class of Oldroyd models, a scaling description for a final stage of the collapse is obtained. For Maxwell models which form a subclass of Oldroyd models, an asymptotic scaling behaviour is defined analytically and the exponents describing the collapse are shown to be identical with the classical Rayleigh exponents in an inviscid fluid. For another limiting case of Oldroyd models, a retardation model, the complete analytical description of the collapse is obtained, and it is demonstrated that the exponents are non-universal and dependent upon a model parameter.