An experimental study of the breakage of liquid bridges at stability limit of minimum volume

Abstract

An experimental apparatus to study the breaking process of axisymmetric liquid bridges has been developed, and the breaking sequences of a large number of liquid bridge configurations at minimum-volume stability limit have been analyzed. Experimental results show that very close to the breaking moment the neck radius of the liquid bridge varies as t 1/3 , where t is the time to breakage, irrespective of the value of the distance between the solid disks that support the liquid column.

Stability of liquid bridges with elastic interface

“…The experiment consists in deating the bridge with its extremities immobile until the interface's break up. Meseguer et al 42 used a similar procedure to study interface stability and called it liquid bridge stability limit of minimum volume. In the present study, we use a similar technique to test crude oil-water interfaces that have more complex behavior.…”

On the breaking of long, axisymmetric liquid bridges between unequal supporting disks at minimum volume stability limit

“…Interface evolution due to evaporation [39] is much slower (some minutes) than the breakage due to capillary instability that suddenly developes (within a single high-speed video frame, 0.001 s). All along the breaking sequence, liquid bridge pictures obtained from HISIS 2002 CCD camera, at a rate of 1220 frames per second, are stored in a PC computer.…”

“…According to this procedure, already used in previous experimental studies [20,39,[41][42][43], since liquid bridges are formed with an initial volume higher than the cylindrical one (V > 1), there are always several images of the liquid bridge with almost cylindrical volume (V & 1). These images are selected, stored and digitized.…”

“…Sirignano and Mehring [37] have recently published a review of the theories commonly used in liquid jet breaking, and an historical review of the most representative publications concerning the breaking of liquid bridges can be found in Zhang, Padgett and Basaran [38]. That review has been completed with a very recently published paper on this topic [39].…”

IDR/UPM facilities for liquid bridge experimentation on Earth under microgravity conditions

“…The nonlinear dynamics and breakage of liquid bridges was first studied some twenty years ago, using inviscid, one-dimensional models [5,6]. An historical review of the most representative publications concerning the breaking of liquid bridges can be found in [7,8].…”