Coalescing Clusters Unveil New Regimes of Frictional Fluid Mechanics

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Yue, Haicen, Burton, Justin C., Sussman, Daniel M.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2022
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author Yue, Haicen
Burton, Justin C.
Sussman, Daniel M.
author_facet Yue, Haicen
Burton, Justin C.
Sussman, Daniel M.
contents Droplet coalescence is essential in a host of biological and industrial processes, involving complex systems as diverse as cellular aggregates, colloidal suspensions, and polymeric liquids. Classical solutions for the time evolution of coalescing clusters are typically based on tractable limiting physics, such as analytical solutions to the Stokes equation. By combining computational and theoretical analyses, we show that there is an unexplored family of coalescence processes: those governed by highly dissipative coupling to the environment. This leads to new scaling laws characterizing droplet coalescence, as well as new time-invariant parameterizations of the shape evolution of the coalescing system. We demonstrate these effects via particle-based simulations and both continuum and boundary-integral solutions to hydrodynamic equations, which we then understand in the context of a generalized Navier-Stokes-like equation. Our theoretical description of highly frictional coalescence mathematically maps onto Darcy flow in the presence of surface tension effects, opening up exciting avenues of research in applying well-studied fluid dynamical techniques to a broad range of novel systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2210_06675
institution arXiv
publishDate 2022
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Coalescing Clusters Unveil New Regimes of Frictional Fluid Mechanics
Yue, Haicen
Burton, Justin C.
Sussman, Daniel M.
Soft Condensed Matter
Fluid Dynamics
Droplet coalescence is essential in a host of biological and industrial processes, involving complex systems as diverse as cellular aggregates, colloidal suspensions, and polymeric liquids. Classical solutions for the time evolution of coalescing clusters are typically based on tractable limiting physics, such as analytical solutions to the Stokes equation. By combining computational and theoretical analyses, we show that there is an unexplored family of coalescence processes: those governed by highly dissipative coupling to the environment. This leads to new scaling laws characterizing droplet coalescence, as well as new time-invariant parameterizations of the shape evolution of the coalescing system. We demonstrate these effects via particle-based simulations and both continuum and boundary-integral solutions to hydrodynamic equations, which we then understand in the context of a generalized Navier-Stokes-like equation. Our theoretical description of highly frictional coalescence mathematically maps onto Darcy flow in the presence of surface tension effects, opening up exciting avenues of research in applying well-studied fluid dynamical techniques to a broad range of novel systems.
title Coalescing Clusters Unveil New Regimes of Frictional Fluid Mechanics
topic Soft Condensed Matter
Fluid Dynamics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.06675