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A more Gentle Cavitation ?

I'm looking to build my own Ultrasonic tank. But due to the nature of the things I'd like to try cleaning (baseball hats, maybe some of my dirtier LPs [vinyl records for those of you who are of the CD generation]), I'm concerned with the VIOLENCE of the cavitation. So I'm looking to construct a more gentle ultrasonic tank, if there can be such a thing, and the physics allow. IS THERE a relationship between the wattage of such a unit and the violence of the cavitation; or between the amount of liquid acted on by 'x' wattage and the resultant cavitation, or ... what? HOW can I "tone things down" in the tank? (For the record, The Swiss National Sound Archives selectively uses ultrasonics to clean some of their records, but I've yet to get a response from them on what they use and how they use it. I've also seen units designed to clean contact lenses which would seem fairly fragile. And I'm aware (barrrrrely) of Sameer Madanshetty's efforts to use lower frequencies to ameliorate the violence of cavitation, but have no idea of the frequencies used, and fear the science is WAYYYY beyond my humble abilities anyway.) Please Note: I'm not a scientist. Nor do I have a degree in, or significant knowledge of, physics. I'm just reading and learning bit by bit: So, layman's terminology would be Greatly appreciated in any response anyone cares to take the time to make.

You all have a wunderbar day. From San Diego, California, I am

Christopher A. Steele Son of Col. M.J. Steele, USASA/AGC, Fts: Devens, Rucker, Lawton, OATerm, + casteele95thbgheavy

Reply to
Christopher A. Steele
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Seems the physics is as follows.. Sound travels thru a medium as a sequence of compressed and rarification of that medium; most especially in the case of a liquid or a gas. So, it seems the energy needs to be large enough to break the inter-molecular bonding of (in this case) the fluid. I cannot say that this is frequency dependent or not, but would hazard a guess that, to some point, the higher the frequency, the lower the "critical point" energy would be for cavitation. So, the solution would seem to use a liquid with low inter-molecular bonding. One clue to that would seem to be surface tension; so try alcohol, and if there is a surfactant ("soap") that is good for alcohol, add that. With this combination, i think you could lower the power requirements (at same frequency, if dependent on frequency) by at least a factor of two or more (maybe four??).

Reply to
Robert Baer

Robert:

Good suggestion. And I wanted to use a surfactant anyway (need to, actually), so I'll play around with your suggestions. THANK you for taking the time to respond to my query, Sir. //Christopher

Reply to
Christopher A. Steele

Robert:

Good suggestion. And I wanted to use a surfactant anyway (need to, actually), so I'll play around with your suggestions. THANK you for taking the time to respond to my query, Sir. //Christopher

Reply to
Christopher A. Steele

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