An experimental investigation was conducted to observe bubble oscillation phenomenon on heating wires during subcooled pool boiling, and associated analyses were proposed to describe these dynamical processes. Single bubble oscillation usually occurred between two immobile bubbles regularly, and coupling bubble oscillation with two oscillating bubbles can be also observed in sonic special conditions. Both experimental evidences and theoretical analyses indicated that the interfacial thermocapillary effect and the interaction of adjacent bubbles played the principle roles in bubble oscillation. The evolution of bubble oscillation was mainly affected by the effective viscosity, and the oscillation would weaken for positive effective viscosity and magnify for negative effective viscosity. The oscillation near the equilibrium point can be handled as a harmonic oscillation. The coupling oscillation was also investigated by the dynamical model, and its characteristics were similar to those of single bubble oscillation. The theoretical predictions were compared with experimental results and showed a reasonable agreement with each other. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.