Shock waves transport effects

The shock wave is subject to other dissipative effects, however, such as viscosity and heat transport. It is these dissipative mechanisms that are responsible for preventing the shock from becoming a true, infinitesimally thin discontinuity. In reality, the velocity gradient can only increase until... 

In the literature we can now find several papers which establish a widely accepted scenario of the benefits and effects of an ultrasound field in an electrochemical process [13-15]. Most of this work has been focused on low frequency and high power ultrasound fields. Its propagation in a fluid such as water is quite complex, where the acoustic streaming and especially the cavitation are the two most important phenomena. In addition, other effects derived from the cavitation such as microjetting and shock waves have been related with other benefits reported for this coupling. For example, shock waves induced in the liquid cause not only an enhanced convective movement of material but also a possible surface damage. Micro jets of liquid, with speeds of up to 100 ms-1, result from the asymmetric collapse of cavitation bubbles at the solid surface [16] and contribute to the enhancement of the mass transport of material to the solid surface of the electrode. Therefore, depassivation [17], reaction mechanism modification [18], surface activation [19], adsorption phenomena decrease [20] and the mass transport enhancement [21] are effects derived from the presence of an ultrasound field on electrode processes. We have only listed the main phenomena referring to the reader to the specific reviews [22, 23] and reference therein. 

Ultrasound frequency has revealed as the most important operational variable. Low frequency (20-60 kHz) has been most used to obtain mechanical effects such mass transport enhancement, shock waves, microjetting and surface vibration, especially used in the nanostructure preparation. It has been reported [118] that... 

Microstreaming, shock waves, and liquid microjets in the vicinity of solid surfaces lead to very efficient cleaning. This effect has been used in industry for more than forty years. Insoluble layers of inorganic salts, polymers, or liquids can be removed by the ultrasonic cleaning effect. In heterogeneous systems such a clean reactive surface leads to improved dissolution rates of metals in acids and enhanced reaction rates. Chemical reactions giving insoluble products are freed from these mass-transport-limiting layers and react rapidly. 

Several papers have dealt with this important aspect. The sonoelectrochemical tool has, also in this case, shown adequacy in establishing the effects of the cavitational collapse and shock waves on the diffusion layer in the vicinity of an electrode (see p. 272).In every case, sonication results in an acceleration of all the mass transport phenomena, and a static electrode becomes equivalent to a disk spinning at a high rate.24 A mathematical model has been calculated to represent these effects.25... 

This is so despite the fact that points of lower values of x have been exposed to high pressures for a longer time. It has been speculated in connection with gaseous systems that the effect may be due to lateral transport losses. The compression process, shown in Fig, consists of two regions up to the point S the flow is that of a simple (isentropic) compression wave, while beyond S the flow is no more a simple compression and, consequently, there is an increase of entropy across the shock front. The corresponding compression energies are expressed by equations 15 16 of Ref 14, p 51 ... 

At high enough qualities and mass fluxes, however, it would be expected that the nucleate boiling would be suppressed and the heat transfer would be by forced convection, analogous to that for the evaporation for pure fluids. Shock [282] considered heat and mass transfer in annular flow evaporation of ethanol water mixtures in a vertical tube. He obtained numerical solutions of the turbulent transport equations and carried out calculations with mass transfer resistance calculated in both phases and with mass transfer resistance omitted in one or both phases. The results for interfacial concentration as a function of distance are illustrated in Fig. 15.112. These results show that the liquid phase mass transfer resistance is likely to be small and that the main resistance is in the vapor phase. A similar conclusion was reached in recent work by Zhang et al. [283] these latter authors show that mass transfer effects would not have a large effect on forced convective evaporation, particularly if account is taken of the enhancement of the gas mass transfer coefficient as a result of interfacial waves. 

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