If you could examine the waves at any instant, you would notice that they consist of equally spaced peaks and valleys. Sound waves, although invisible to the naked eye, travel through air in a similar manner. The peaks are referred to as points of compression and the valleys are referred to as points of rarefaction or cavitation. The number of peaks that occur each second is referred to as the wave's frequency, which is usually expressed in cycles per second or cps. This article examines the technology behind cleaning window coverings and other hard surfaces using ultrasonic sound waves.
Ultrasonic waves are sound waves with frequencies above the limits of human audibility.
They range in frequency from 20,000 to 100,000 cycles per second. The most common frequencies used for cleaning are between 20,000 cps to 50,000 cps. It does so at the millions of different sites where rarefaction or cavitations of the waves occur. Cavitation bubbles grow to unstable sizes, followed by their violent collapse or implosion. The intense pressures produced can locally superheat fluids up to 2,500 o C, for a split second.