Universality in the viscous-to-inertial coalescence of liquid droplets

Xi Xia; Chengming He; Peng Zhang

doi:10.1073/pnas.1910711116

Universality in the viscous-to-inertial coalescence of liquid droplets

Xi Xia, Chengming He, Peng Zhang

Research output: Journal article publication › Journal article › Academic research › peer-review

62 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We present a theory on the coalescence of 2 spherical liquid droplets that are initially stationary. The evolution of the radius of a liquid neck formed upon coalescence was formulated as an initial value problem and then solved to yield an exact solution without free parameters, with its 2 asymptotic approximations reproducing the well-known scaling relations in the inertially limited viscous and inertial regimes. The viscous-to-inertial crossover observed in previous research is also recovered by the theory, rendering the collapse of data of different viscosities onto a single curve.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	23467-23472
Number of pages	6
Journal	Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume	116
Issue number	47
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1910711116
Publication status	Published - 2019

Keywords

Droplet coalescence
Scaling

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General

More information

10.1073/pnas.1910711116

http://hdl.handle.net/10397/95594

Cite this

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abstract = "We present a theory on the coalescence of 2 spherical liquid droplets that are initially stationary. The evolution of the radius of a liquid neck formed upon coalescence was formulated as an initial value problem and then solved to yield an exact solution without free parameters, with its 2 asymptotic approximations reproducing the well-known scaling relations in the inertially limited viscous and inertial regimes. The viscous-to-inertial crossover observed in previous research is also recovered by the theory, rendering the collapse of data of different viscosities onto a single curve.",

keywords = "Droplet coalescence, Scaling",

author = "Xi Xia and Chengming He and Peng Zhang",

note = "Funding Information: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We acknowledge support from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council/General Research Fund (Grants PolyU 152217/14E and PolyU 152651/16E) and the “Open Fund” of State Key Laboratory of Engines (Tianjin University, Grant K2018-12). Funding Information: We acknowledge support from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council/General Research Fund (Grants PolyU 152217/14E and PolyU 152651/16E) and the ?Open Fund? of State Key Laboratory of Engines (Tianjin University, Grant K2018-12). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.",

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AU - He, Chengming

AU - Zhang, Peng

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N2 - We present a theory on the coalescence of 2 spherical liquid droplets that are initially stationary. The evolution of the radius of a liquid neck formed upon coalescence was formulated as an initial value problem and then solved to yield an exact solution without free parameters, with its 2 asymptotic approximations reproducing the well-known scaling relations in the inertially limited viscous and inertial regimes. The viscous-to-inertial crossover observed in previous research is also recovered by the theory, rendering the collapse of data of different viscosities onto a single curve.

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KW - Scaling

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Universality in the viscous-to-inertial coalescence of liquid droplets

Abstract

Keywords

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