Coalescence of Liquid Drops

When two drops of radius $R$ touch, surface tension drives an initially singular motion which joins them into a bigger drop with smaller surface area. This motion is always viscously dominated at early times. We focus on the early-time behavior of the radius $\rmn$ of the small bridge between the two drops. The flow is driven by a highly curved meniscus of length $2\pi \rmn$ and width $\Delta\ll\rmn$ around the bridge, from which we conclude that the leading-order problem is asymptotically equivalent to its two-dimensional counterpart. An exact two-dimensional solution for the case of inviscid surroundings [Hopper, J. Fluid Mech. ${\bf 213}$, 349 (1990)] shows that $\Delta \propto \rmn^3$ and $\rmn \sim (t\gamma/\pi\eta)\ln [t\gamma/(\eta R)]$; and thus the same is true in three dimensions. The case of coalescence with an external viscous fluid is also studied in detail both analytically and numerically. A significantly different structure is found in which the outer fluid forms a toroidal bubble of radius $\Delta \propto \rmn^{3/2}$ at the meniscus and $\rmn \sim (t\gamma/4\pi\eta) \ln [t\gamma/(\eta R)]$. This basic difference is due to the presence of the outer fluid viscosity, however small. With lengths scaled by $R$ a full description of the asymptotic flow for $\rmn(t)\ll1$ involves matching of lengthscales of order $\rmn^2, \rmn^{3/2}$, \rmn$, 1 and probably$\rmn^{7/4}$.