The formation of a single bubble from an orifice in a solid surface, submerged in an incompressible, viscous Newtonian liquid, is simulated. The finite element method is used to capture the multiscale physics associated with the problem and to track the evolution of the free surface explicitly. The results are compared to a recent experimental analysis and then used to obtain the global characteristics of the process, the formation time and volume of the bubble, for a range of orifice radii; Ohnesorge numbers, which combine the material parameters of the liquid; and volumetric gas flow rates. These benchmark calculations, for the parameter space of interest, are then utilised to validate a selection of scaling laws found in the literature for two regimes of bubble formation, the regimes of low and high gas flow rates.

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An experimental investigation is carried out into the attachment of a single particle to a liquid drop. High-speed videography is used to directly visualize the so-called 'snap-in' effect which occurs rapidly over sub-millisecond timescales. Using high-magnification, the evolution of the contact line around the particle is tracked and dynamic features such as the contact angle, wetted radius and force are extracted from these images to help build a fundamental understanding of the process. By examining the wetted length in terms of an arc angle, ϕ, it is shown that the early wetting stage is an inertial-dominated process and best described by a power law relation, i.e. ϕ ∼ (t/τ), where τ is an inertial timescale. For the subsequent lift-off stage, the initial particle displacement is matched with that predicted using a simple balance between particle weight and capillary force with reasonable agreement. The lift-off force is shown to be on the order of 1-100 μN, whilst the force of impacting droplets is known to be on the order of 10-1000 mN. This explains the ease in which liquid marbles are formed during impact experiments.