Title

Coalescence of bubbles and drops in an outer fluid

Author(s)/Creator(s)

Joseph Paulsen, Syracuse University
Remi Carmigniani
Anerudh Kannan
Justin C. Burton

ORCID

Joseph Paulsen: 0000-0001-6048-456X

Document Type

Article

Date

2014

Keywords

airflow, bubble, coalescence, data acquisition, fluid flow, microscopy, viscocity, droplet collision

Language

English

Funder(s)

Grainger Foundation

Funding ID

DMR-1105145,NSF-MRSEC DMR-0820054

Acknowledgements

We thank Osman Basaran, Efi Efrati and Wendy Zhang for many enlightening discussions. We thank Irmgard Bischofberger and Andrzej Latka for measurements of fluid parameters of the silicone oils used. J.D.P. gratefully acknowledges a Grainger Foundation Fellowship. This work was supported by NSF Grant DMR-1105145, NSF-MRSEC DMR-0820054 and NSF-PREM DMR-0934192.

Official Citation

Coalescence of bubbles and drops in an outer fluid. JD Paulsen, R Carmigniani, A Kannan, JC Burton, & SR Nagel, Nature Communications 5, 3182 (2014).

Disciplines

Physics

Description/Abstract

When two liquid drops touch, a microscopic connecting liquid bridge forms and rapidly grows as the two drops merge into one. Whereas coalescence has been thoroughly studied when drops coalesce in vacuum or air, many important situations involve coalescence in a dense surrounding fluid, such as oil coalescence in brine. Here we study the merging of gas bubbles and liquid drops in an external fluid. Our data indicate that the flows occur over much larger length scales in the outer fluid than inside the drops themselves. Thus, we find that the asymptotic early regime is always dominated by the viscosity of the drops, independent of the external fluid. A phase diagram showing the crossovers into the different possible late-time dynamics identifies a dimensionless number that signifies when the external viscosity can be important.

ISSN

20411723

Additional Information

Additional authors: R Carmigniani, A Kannan, JC Burton, & SR Nagel.

Nature Communications allows authors to archive pre-print, post-print, and publisher's versions of publications.

Recommended Citation

Coalescence of bubbles and drops in an outer fluid. JD Paulsen, R Carmigniani, A Kannan, JC Burton, & SR Nagel, Nature Communications 5, 3182 (2014)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.