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Restoring universality to the pinch-off of a bubble

Author(s)
Pahlavan, Amir A.; McKinley, Gareth H.; Juanes, Ruben
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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Abstract
The pinch-off of a bubble is an example of the formation of a singularity, exhibiting a characteristic separation of length and time scales. Because of this scale separation, one expects universal dynamics that collapse into self-similar behavior determined by the relative importance of viscous, inertial, and capillary forces. Surprisingly, however, the pinch-off of a bubble in a large tank of viscous liquid is known to be nonuniversal. Here, we show that the pinch-off dynamics of a bubble confined in a capillary tube undergo a sequence of two distinct self-similar regimes, even though the entire evolution is controlled by a balance between viscous and capillary forces. We demonstrate that the early-time self-similar regime restores universality to bubble pinch-off by erasing the system’s memory of the initial conditions. Our findings have important implications for bubble/drop generation in microfluidic devices, with applications in inkjet printing, medical imaging, and synthesis of particulate materials.
Date issued
2019-06-17
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/124548
Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Publisher
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Citation
Pahlavan, Amir A. et al. "Restoring universality to the pinch-off of a bubble." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 116 (2019): 13780–13784 © 2019 The Author(s)
Version: Final published version
ISSN
0027-8424
1091-6490
Keywords
Multidisciplinary

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