Investigation of Microbubble Dynamics under Acoustic Field

Ultrasound has been used for various applications, including the ultrasound-focused break up of urinary stones, diagnostic imaging, Ménière’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease. Recent advancement in ultrasound is in using microbubble oscillation to enhance the effect of the drug in chemotherapy. Since compressibility of a bubble is large, the bubble oscillates in accordance with ultrasound. The oscillation of the intravascular microbubbles increases the permeability of endothelium, thus increasing the drug uptake to the target site. In this study, the dynamic of a bubble in a non-Newtonian power-law fluid confined within an elastic solid is investigated to understand the microbubble behavior in a blood vessel. An external acoustic field is applied to the elastic confinement to obtain volume oscillations. The effects of the frequency and the peak negative pressure of the acoustic field, the power-law index, the confinement size, and the bulk modulus are studied.