CAvitation and Ultra-Sonic Cleaning

Project information
Partner	TUM-Oerlikon Advanced Manufacturing Institute (AMI)
Period	January 2023 to December 2025
Project-Homepage	https://www.ioc.tum.de/en/ami/projects/causc/

Ultrasonic cleaning systems use vibration generators within a liquid tank to produce standing waves, effectively removing small contaminations from components submerged in the bath. These waves generate pressure fields that excite gas or vapor bubbles near the surfaces of the components, enhancing the cleaning process. Our research focuses on comprehensively understanding and optimizing the cleaning mechanism by exploring various parameters such as frequency, intensity, and tank design. To achieve this, we utilize the advanced compressible flow solver JAX-Fluids, which couples an Eulerian background flow field with a Lagrangian particle solver to accurately model sub-grid cavitation bubbles. This approach allows us to bridge the gap in scale separation between cavitation dynamics and process scales, leading to more precise numerical simulations and improved cleaning predictions.