Nonlinear wave interactions in bubble layers

Due to the large compressibility of gas bubbles, layers of a bubbly liquid surrounded by pure liquid exhibit many resonances that can give rise to a strongly nonlinear behavior even for relatively low-level excitation. In an earlier paper [Druzhinin et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 100, 3570 (1996)] it was pointed out that, by exciting the bubbly layer in correspondence of two resonant modes, so chosen that the difference frequency also corresponds to a resonant mode, it might be possible to achieve an efficient parametric generation of a low-frequency signal. The earlier work made use of a simplified model for the bubbly liquid that ignored the dissipation and dispersion introduced by the bubbles. Here a more realistic description of the bubble behavior is used to study the nonlinear oscillations of a bubble layer under both single- and dual-frequency excitation. It is found that a difference-frequency power of the order of 1% can be generated with incident pressure amplitudes of the order of 50 kPa or so. It appears that similar phenomena would occur in other systems, such as porous waterlike or rubberlike media.