Simulation Study of the Variations in Driving Pressure and Frequency on Microbubbles Contras Agents Behavior

Abstract

The difference between the density of the gas core of microbubbles and the surrounding media causes the behavior of microbubbles contrast agents in an ultrasound field to be nonlinear and intricate. In addition, many factors affect the radial oscillations of these microbubbles. Some of these factors are related with the bubble structure and its shell material such as the initial radius of the bubble, shell thickness, viscosity of the shell material and its elasticity. Other factors are related with the incident acoustic wave such as the driving frequency and driving pressure amplitude. In this simulation study the effects of pressure and frequency as influential factors on the stability of the microbubble were studied in wide range (frequencies are extend from f<fr to f≈3 fr, pressure extends from 0.05 to 1.5 MPa.), and analyzed using the bifurcation theory to visualize and characterize the effect of these factors on the microbubbles behavior. The study expounded theoretically that the generation the higher order of subharmonic oscillations is possible to result at high driving frequencies with low and appropriate driving pressures.

Keywords

• Ultrasound contrast agents
• Microbubbles
• Bifurcation
• Nonlinear behavior
• Driving pressure and frequency