Symmetric and Asymmetric Coalescence of Drops on a Substrate
Abstract
The coalescence of viscous drops on a substrate is studied experimentally and theoretically. We consider cases where the drops can have different contact angles, leading to a very asymmetric coalescence process. Side view experiments reveal that the "bridge" connecting the drops evolves with self-similar dynamics, providing a new perspective on the coalescence of sessile drops. We show that the universal shape of the bridge is accurately described by similarity solutions of the one-dimensional lubrication equation. Our theory predicts a bridge that grows linearly in time and stresses the strong dependence on the contact angles. Without any adjustable parameters, we find quantitative agreement with all experimental observations.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1207.2635,
title = {Symmetric and Asymmetric Coalescence of Drops on a Substrate},
author = {J. F. Hernandez-Sanchez and L. A. Lubbers and A. Eddi and J. H. Snoeijer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1207.2635},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
5 pages, 4 figures