The Library
Dynamics of liquid drops coalescing in the inertial regime
Tools
Sprittles, James E. and Shikhmurzaev, Yulii D. (2014) Dynamics of liquid drops coalescing in the inertial regime. Physical Review E, 89 (6). 063008. doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.89.063008 ISSN 1539-3755.
Research output not available from this repository.
Request-a-Copy directly from author or use local Library Get it For Me service.
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.89.063008
Abstract
We examine the dynamics of two coalescing liquid drops in the “inertial regime,” where the effects of viscosity are negligible and the propagation of the front of the bridge connecting the drops can be considered as “local.” The solution fully computed in the framework of classical fluid mechanics allows this regime to be identified, and the accuracy of the approximating scaling laws proposed to describe the propagation of the bridge to be established. It is shown that the scaling law known for this regime has a very limited region of accuracy, and, as a result, in describing experimental data it has frequently been applied outside its limits of applicability. The origin of the scaling law's shortcoming appears to be the fact that it accounts for the capillary pressure due only to the longitudinal curvature of the free surface as the driving force for the process. To address this deficiency, the scaling law is extended to account for both the longitudinal and azimuthal curvatures at the bridge front, which, fortuitously, still results in an explicit analytic expression for the front's propagation speed. This expression is shown to offer an excellent approximation for both the fully computed solution and for experimental data from a range of flow configurations for a remarkably large proportion of the coalescence process. The derived formula allows one to predict the speed at which drops coalesce for the duration of the inertial regime, which should be useful for the analysis of experimental data.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Mathematics | ||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Physical Review E | ||||
Publisher: | American Physical Society | ||||
ISSN: | 1539-3755 | ||||
Official Date: | 12 June 2014 | ||||
Dates: |
|
||||
Volume: | 89 | ||||
Number: | 6 | ||||
Article Number: | 063008 | ||||
DOI: | 10.1103/PhysRevE.89.063008 | ||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access |
Request changes or add full text files to a record
Repository staff actions (login required)
View Item |