Intermittency of Bubble Deformation in Turbulence

The deformation of finite-sized bubbles in intense turbulence exhibits complex geometries beyond simple spheroids as the bubbles exchange energy with the surrounding eddies across a wide range of scales. This study investigates deformation via the velocity of the most stretched tip of the deformed bubble in three dimensions, as the tip extension results from the compression of the rest of the interface by surrounding eddies. The results show that the power spectrum based on the tip velocity exhibits a scaling akin to that of the Lagrangian statistics of fluid elements, but decays with a distinct timescale and magnitude modulated by the Weber number based on the bubble size. This indicates that the interfacial energy is primarily siphoned from eddies of similar sizes as the bubble. Moreover, the tip velocity appears much more intermittent than the velocity increment, and its distribution near the extreme tails can be explained by the proposed model that accounts for the fact that small eddies with sufficient energy can contribute to extreme deformation. These findings provide a framework for understanding the energy transfer between deformable objects and multiscale eddies in intense turbulence. © 2024 American Physical Society.