Coalescence preference in densely packed microbubbles

Journal Article · Tue Jan 13 00:00:00 EST 2015 · Scientific Reports

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/srep07739· OSTI ID:1168533

Kim, Yeseul ^[1]; Lim, Su Jin ^[1]; Gim, Bopil ^[2]; Weon, Byung Mook ^[1]

---

1. Sungkyunkwan Univ., Suwon (Korea)
2. Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon (Korea)

A bubble merged from two parent bubbles with different size tends to be placed closer to the larger parent. This phenomenon is known as the coalescence preference. Here we demonstrate that the coalescence preference can be blocked inside a densely packed cluster of bubbles. We utilized high-speed high-resolution X-ray microscopy to clearly visualize individual coalescence events inside densely packed microbubbles with a local packing fraction of ~40%. Thus, the surface energy release theory predicts an exponent of 5 in a relation between the relative coalescence position and the parent size ratio, whereas our observation for coalescence in densely packed microbubbles shows a different exponent of 2. We believe that this result would be important to understand the reality of coalescence dynamics in a variety of packing situations of soft matter.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-06CH11357
• OSTI ID: 1168533
• Journal Information: Scientific Reports, Vol. 5, Issue 01, 2015; ISSN 2045-2322
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: ENGLISH

Related Subjects

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
fluid dynamics
fluids