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Simulation of ultrasonic cleaning and ways to improve the efficiency

Conference Paper · March 2017

DOI: 10.1109/IEECON.2017.8075747

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5th International Electrical Engineering Congress, Pattaya, Thailand, 8-10 March 2017
Simulation of Ultrasonic Cleaning and Ways to
Improve the Efficiency
Worapol Tangsopha, Jatuporn Thongsri*
Computer Simulation in Engineering Research Group,
College of Advanced Manufacturing Innovation,
King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang,
Bangkok, 10520, Thailand
*Jatuporn.th@kmitl.ac.th
Abstract—Based on practical problem in industrial ultrasonic
cleaning, this research has an objective to simulate acoustic
pressure leading to cavitation in a cleaning tank. By using
Harmonic response in ANSYS as simulation software, acoustic
pressure distribution has been simulated at different position in
the cleaning tank. The result has been confirmed by aluminum
foil corrosion test. The simulations show that increasing power of
piezoelectric transducers can lead to increasing the power of
acoustic pressure; however, it cannot lead to the change of
acoustic pressure distribution. To change the acoustic pressure
distribution, the difference of frequencies is required. For such
typical ultrasonic cleaning tank, the position of the highest
cleaning efficiency is at the middle of the tank. Finally, the result
can lead to the optimization between the power and frequency of
ultrasonic to reach the maximum cleaning efficiency.
Keywords—acoustic pressure; cavitation; harmonic response;
simulation; ultrasonic cleaning
I. INTRODUCTION
Ultrasonic cleaning is one of beneficial applications of
ultrasonic cavitation. Frequencies of waves vary from 20-400
kHz. With appropriate solution as media of ultrasonic waves,
cavitation is created as aspect to clean object such as lens,
jewelry, watches, dental and surgical instruments. The
ultrasonic cleaning also is typical application to clean object
from production line such as electronics devices to eliminate
particles contamination as these particles may cause fault
usage, under-standard performance or else. The contaminated
parts in production will be cleaned in ultrasonic tank until all
other particles are eliminated then they will be delivered into
the production line later.
This research collaborates with an industrial partner who
produces electronic devices. In general, the contaminated parts
will be cleaned by using ultrasonic tank. However expected
result of cleanliness is uncertain and repeated cleanings are
required. However, repeated cleanings may lead to damages
and cracks on these electronics parts. Cost of production in
these processes is estimated to be several hundred million
baths. Previously, some modifications have been employed in
case of improving the performance of ultrasonic cleaning;
however, the result cannot be repeated because of the lack of
systematic and scientific research. Therefore, simulation to
study the ultrasonic cavitation is required with various
978-1-5090-4666-9/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
Wutthikrai Busayaporn
Research Facility Department,
Synchrotron Light Research Institute,
Nakhon Ratchasima, 30000, Thailand
Wutthikrai@slri.or.th
parameters as in the practical ultrasonic tank. In literature
search, Osterman et al. [1] used Computational Fluid
Dynamics (CFD) to simulate near-wall bubble collapses in an
ultrasonic field. This work provided fundamental mechanism
of how ultrasonic cavitation is created. On the other hand, to
observe the practical effects of ultrasonic cavitation on
material, corrosion of aluminum foil in ultrasonic cleaning
was investigated by Baoji et al. [2]. The corroded pattern
showed the positions of ultrasonic cavitation in the ultrasonic
tank where the aluminum foil were placed. These patterns
were collected via image processing toolbox in the MATLAB
software. The cavitation was examined as function of
aluminum foil positions and temperatures of solution using in
the experiment. Application of using ultrasonic cleaning for
various disk drive components has been conducted by
Vetrimurugan et al. [3,4]. The work explains how damages
occur from ultrasonic cleaning and methods to prevent them
under various parameters of frequencies and power of waves,
duration of sonication and solvents. For the physical and
chemical effect of ultrasonic cleaning to the sample, Yusof et
al. [5] has studied physical and chemical changes from
ultrasonic cavitation. The simulation has been done in
comparable to the experiment in Bretz et al. [6]. CFD has been
employed to simulate cavitation in fluid then compared to the
practical corrosion of aluminum foil under the ultrasonic
conditions. Both theoretical and experimental results show
their consistencies. However, work in reference [6] has been
conducted by using only 2-dimensional (2D) model of
calculation and with only one transducer. The result exhibits
limited implication compare to the actual application in the
industry. Lately, Li et al. [7] has modified parts of simulation
using COMSOL software. With this work, acoustic pressure in
the ultrasonic tank has been simulated via 3-dimensional (3D)
method with variation of frequencies and levels of media to
generate differences of cavitation. From all work mentioned
above, it can be concluded that the efficiency of ultrasonic
cleaning depends on parameters such as level of solution,
frequencies, position of objects, power of transducers, and
shape of tank, which are specifications of each ultrasonic tank.
To optimize efficiency of ultrasonic cleaning, parameters of
operation must be studied. This work has been designed to
simulate ultrasonic cleaning in an industrial tank using
Harmonic response of ANSYS software [8] to figure out the
optimized parameters as function to create cavitation. Result
5th International Electrical Engineering Congress, Pattaya, Thailand, 8-10 March 2017

has been expected to provide important information to transducers which are capable of generating 28kHz wave up to
improve efficiency of ultrasonic cleaning tank. 400 watt. The figure of the tank is shown in Fig. 1.

II. THEORECAL BACKGROUND

Cavitation occurs from the power generated by piezoelectric
transducer. With this device, ultrasonic wave propagate into
the solution causes alternating high-pressure (compression)
and low-pressure (rare fraction) cycles in media. These cycles
are greatly depending on the frequency emitted from the
transducer. During the low pressure cycle, high-intensity
ultrasonic waves create small vacuum bubbles in the solution.
When the bubbles attain such volume at the limitation of
energy absorption, they violently collapse during a high- Fig. 1. Actual industrial ultrasonic tank chosen
pressure cycle. This collapse locally release extremely high as model of the experiment
temperature (~ 5000 K) and pressure (~ 2000 atm). The B. CAD Model
bubble implosion also creates liquid jets of up to 280 m/s in
velocity at such limited volume. Combination of these From geometry of ultrasonic tank mentioned in Fig. 1,
phenomena happens cause elimination of contaminated Computer-aided design (CAD) model has been generated as in
particles on the surface of objects as the cleaning process. Fig. 2. After that the model has been filled with water as the
There is no exact mathematical equation yet to express the solvent. Eight of piezoelectric transducers are situated under
generation of cavitation. However, equations of acoustic the plate at bottom of the tank. When all piezoelectric
pressure have been generally implied to explain position of transducers were operated, ultrasonic wave at 28kHz was
nodes of cavitation those generated and also the power of generated through the plate acted as a transmitter of created
cavitation [6, 7]. The wave equation of acoustic pressure can cavitation.
be written in form of Helmholtz equation [9] as

1 ω2 p
∇⋅− ( ∇p ) − =0, (1)
ρ c2 ρ
where acoustic pressure p = p0exp(iȦt). Ȧ represents the
frequency of wave. The constants c and ȡ are the speed of
wave and density of water, respectively.
With the finite element equation, mathematical model for
acoustic pressure calculation can be expressed by [10] Fig. 2. CAD model of ultrasonic tank

([ K ]) − ω [ M ]{U } − [Γ ]{P} = {0} ,

2
(2) C. Mesh Model
§ 1 1 · Number of elements in mesh model is one of the important
2 [ ]
S − 2 [T ] ¸ { P} − [ Γ ] { P} = {W } ,
T
¨ (3) parameter to simulate the accurate cavitation under the
© ρω ρc ¹
ultrasonic wave. This parameter is strongly depending on the
where [ K ] and [ M ] are matrices of structural stiffness and frequency used in the tank [8]. As mesh model should be 6
mass, respectively. [ Γ ] is coupling matrix. [ S ] and [T ] are elements per wavelength, the simulated tank would have
hexahedral mesh at 1.09 million elements with 2.94 million
matrixes of acoustic inertance and elastance, respectively. nodes as in Fig. 3.
{U } , {P} and {W } are vectors of structural nodal displacement,
fluid nodal pressure and acoustic forcing, respectively.
Harmonic response in ANSYS has been employed with the
equations mentioned above to simulate acoustic pressure
which directly affect to efficiency of ultrasonic cleaning.

III. METHODOLOGY

A. Ultrasonic Tank
The industrial ultrasonic tank with the size of 244 mm x340
mm x290 mm (width x length x depth) has been chosen. It can Fig. 3. Mesh model of ultrasonic tank
approximately contain amount of water up to 18 liters.
Sources of ultrasonic wave come from 8 piezoelectric
5th International Electrical Engineering Congress, Pattaya, Thailand, 8-10 March 2017

D. Harmonic Response Setting

As information provided by vender of the industrial ultrasonic
tank and ANSYS engineering data [8], some parameters have
been registered into Harmonic response mode in ANSYS
software as following,
TABLE I. MATERIAL PROPERTIES
Domain Type Value
Water density 990.2 kg/m3

Water )45 Co( Acoustic velocity 1,533.5 m/s

Dynamic viscosity 5.798x10-4 kg/m s

Density 2,770 kg/m3

Young’s modulus 7.1x1010 Pa

Aluminum
Poisson’s ratio 0.33
alloy
Bulk modulus 6.961x1010 Pa

Shear modulus 2.669x1010 Pa

Density 7,750 kg/m3

Young’s modulus 1.93x1011 Pa

Stainless
Poisson’s ratio 0.31
steel
Bulk modulus 1.693 x1010 Pa

Shear modulus 7.366x1010 Pa

Density 7,500 kg/m3

Permittivity constant
8.854 x10-12 F/m
)İ0(
c11=c22=13.9, c21=7.78,
Piezoelectric Stiffness matrix [cE]
c31=c32= 7.43, c44=3.06, 
)PZT4( (x1010) Fig. 4. Comparison of simulation of acoustic pressure and experiment
c55= c66 = 2.56 Pa of aluminum foil corrosion in planes 1 and 2
e31= -5.2, e33= 15.1,
Stress matrix [e]
e15=12.7 C/m2
Relative permittivity İr 11 = İr 22 = 1,475, V. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
[İr] İr 33 = 1,300
The simulation of pressure distribution in the ultrasonic tank
IV. VALIDATION when operated at 300, 350 and 400 w exhibited the stable
pattern of cavitation as in Fig. 5. However the power to
The result of simulation has been compared to the validation operate the piezoelectric transducers only had an effect to the
using aluminum foil corrosion as the indicator of ultrasonic power of acoustic pressure. As in Fig. 5, specific area would
cavitation. The foil erosion assessment is based on the erosion exhibit the high efficiency of cleaning such as the middle of
effect of the ultrasonic cavitation on the aluminum foil. The the tank. This result is also corresponding to the report from
aluminum foil with thickness of 0.15 - 0.20 mm was supported the industry that the level of cleanliness of objects are vary
by a stainless steel stent and positioned in the ultrasonic tank when the object are equally distributed into the tank volume.
for 3 minutes. The acoustic pressure distribution from Furthermore, decreasing of power in operation may be
simulation is well consistent to the result of foil corrosion as considered to less the damages of devices in the cleaning
shown in Fig. 4. In Fig. 4a) and 4b), the simulation provided process. The optimization between the power of cleaning
the 6 and 7 layers of cavitation, respectively. Noted that the operation, damage occurrence and cost of operation may be
patterns of each layer were different. At marked areas, tiny further investigated.
holes were observed on the foil as effect of the corrosion. In
addition, comparison between the simulation and foil Fig. 6 shows effect of frequencies to the acoustic pressure.
corrosion had been conducted for other planes. The result When the piezoelectric transducers generated ultrasonic waves
showed the good agreement but they are not shown here at 28, 48, and 68 kHz as mentioned in the typical ultrasonic
because of limited space. tank, higher frequencies would cause the increasing number of
nodes with maximum acoustic pressure. This result is
corresponding to the work, as in [7]. Note that slightly
different in shape of the acoustic pressure distribution might
be the effects of difference in shape of the ultrasonic tank and
5th International Electrical Engineering Congress, Pattaya, Thailand, 8-10 March 2017
the number of transducers. The study also elucidated that
increasing the number of transducers can lead to higher
homogeneity of cavitation distribution which suit for the mass
cleaning in industry. The middle of the ultrasonic tank is the
optimum point to situate the object as it will gain the highest
power of ultrasonic cleaning. In addition, it is obvious that
longer period of cleaning can lead to increasing of the
efficiency as in the preliminary test it can cause more
corrosion of the foil; however, this study only employed to 3
minutes as it is the actual time used in industry. Finally, the
change of positions of transducers can lead to the different of
acoustic pressure distributions. However, with the limits of
instruments, these parameters are not investigated yet.
 Parameters,” in Proc. ICDMA, 2011, pp. 1180-1183.
Fig. 5. Acoustic pressure distribution for different power
VI. CONCLUSION
This work simulated the acoustic pressure using Harmonic
response in ANSYS software. The industrial ultrasonic tank at
28 kHz reported problem of the low efficiency of ultrasonic
cleaning has been employed into the investigation. The
simulated patterns of acoustic pressure distribution have been
validated with the corrosion patterns of the aluminum foil in
actual experiment as the indicators. The result shows
consistence between the simulation and experiment. The
power of piezoelectric transducers has no influent to the shape
and position of cavitation pattern unless it directly relate to the
power of cavitation. Increasing the frequencies will cost the
change of acoustic pressure distribution. The position of the
highest cleaning efficiency is at the middle of the tank. The
result from this work is important information for
modification and development of ultrasonic cleaning to gain
the higher efficiency in various industrial usage.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was partially supported by Seagate Technology
(Thailand) Ltd., Pasuda Supplies and Services Co., Ltd.,
College of Advanced Manufacturing Innovation, and King
Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang.
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Fig. 6. Acoustic pressure distribution for different frequency
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