• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.92-98
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• 2015

The physical effect induced by acoustic cavitation was investigated to accumulate basic data for the design of ultrasonic soil washing processes using aluminum foil erosion tests. A square aluminum foil was placed on the glass beads in the pyrex vessel submerged in the sonoreactor equipped with a 36 kHz ultrasound transducer module at the bottom. Cavitational erosion of foils was quantitatively analyzed for various glass bead diameter conditions (1, 2, and 4 mm), glass bead height conditions (5, 10, 15, and 20 mm), and water height conditions (5, 10, 15, and 20 mm). It was found that aluminum foil erosion significantly increased as the glass bead diameter increased and water height over the glass bead increased due to less attenuation of ultrasound and the optimization of sound field for cavitation. Moreover mechanical mixing was suggested to move constantly particles to the bottom area where the acoustic cavitation occurs most violently. It was because aluminium foil erosion by ultrasound transmitted through glass beads was relatively too weak.