Drop encapsulation and bubble bursting in surfactant-laden flows in capillary channels
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Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
We present a parametric study of the unsteady phenomena associated with the flow of elongated gas bubbles traveling through liquid-filled square capillaries under high Weber number conditions. These conditions induce the formation of an indentation at the back of the bubble that commonly gives way to a deep reentrant liquid jet penetrating the bubble. Subsequent steps include pinch-off events in the penetrating liquid to generate one or multiple encapsulated drops which may coalesce, in conjunction with the bursting of the bubble-liquid interface by either the liquid jet or the drops. Some of these interfacial instabilities have previously been reported experimentally and numerically for liquid-liquid flow in microchannels. We carry out three-dimensional direct numerical simulations based on a hybrid interface-tracking/level-set method capable of accounting for the presence and dynamic exchange of surfactants between the liquid bulk phase and the liquid-gas interface. Our results indicate that the delicate interplay among inertia, capillarity, viscosity, surfactant adsorption/desorption kinetics, and Marangoni stresses has a dramatic influence over the nonaxisymmetric morphological structures of the encapsulated drops-elongated bubble. This strong coupling also influences the pinch-off time, penetration depth of the liquid, and number, size, and velocity of the encapsulated drops across the bubble. The observed phenomena are summarized in three main morphological regimes based on surfactant-related parameters and dimensionless groups. A discussion of the flow regime maps is also provided.
Date Issued
2024-03
Date Acceptance
2024-01-23
Citation
Physical Review Fluids, 2024, 9 (3)
ISSN
2469-990X
Publisher
American Physical Society
Journal / Book Title
Physical Review Fluids
Volume
9
Issue
3
Copyright Statement
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.
License URL
Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/physrevfluids.9.034001
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
034001
Date Publish Online
2024-03-01