Statistical Mechanics of Two-dimensional Foams
Soft Condensed Matter
2011-11-10 v1
Abstract
The methods of statistical mechanics are applied to two-dimensional foams under macroscopic agitation. A new variable -- the total cell curvature -- is introduced, which plays the role of energy in conventional statistical thermodynamics. The probability distribution of the number of sides for a cell of given area is derived. This expression allows to correlate the distribution of sides ("topological disorder") to the distribution of sizes ("geometrical disorder") in a foam. The model predictions agree well with available experimental data.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1009.1309,
title = {Statistical Mechanics of Two-dimensional Foams},
author = {Marc Durand},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1009.1309},
year = {2011}
}