How fast do interbubbles travel through water?
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-ehammond
(19Q / 20A)
Fri Feb 1, 2008 8:31pm
via Jott
For very small bubbles, we can show that the speed of the bubble is
u = 1/3 a^2 g/nu
where a is the radius of the bubble, g is the acceleration of gravity (980 cm/s), and nu is the "kinematic viscosity" of water (0.14 cm^2/s).
This only holds for bubbles less than a millimeter across. When they get bigger than that, a "boundary layer" forms, which changes the way the water flows around the bubble, and the speed of the bubble is closer to
u = 1/9 a^2 g/nu