Dissolution Of Rising Helium Bubbles In A Soda-Lime-Silicate Glassmelt

The dissolution of helium bubbles that rise inside a soda-lime-silica glassmelt was studied experimentally at several temperatures for a wide range of bubble sizes. The bubbles dissolved at an increasing rate until they reached a constant size the corresponded to a very small fraction of their initial volume. Mathematical models for both a stationary and a rising bubble were written, with a suitable interfacial boundary condition, and solved by the method of finite differences. Experimental data for bubbles small enough to be considered stationary were used, with the equations for a stationary bubble, to estimate the relevant physical parameters through a least-squares fitting technique.