Topological symmetry breaking in viscous coarsening

Abstract

The crucial role of hydrodynamic pinch-off instabilities is evidenced in the coarsening stage of viscous liquids. The phase separation of a barium borosilicate glass melt is studied by in-situ synchrotron X-Ray tomography at high temperature. The high viscosity contrast between the less viscous phase and the more viscous phase induces a topological symmetry breaking: capillary breakups occur preferentially in the less viscous phase. As a result, contrasting morphologies are obtained in the two phases. This symmetry breaking is illustrated on three different glass compositions , corresponding to different volume fractions of the two phases. In particular, a fragmentation phenomenon, reminiscent of the end-pinching mechanism proposed by Stone et al. [1, 2] is evidenced in the less viscous phase.

References in corpus (2)

• Domain growth morphology in curvature driven two dimensional coarsening
• Probing colloidal gels at multiple lengthscales: the role of hydrodynamics

Cited by in corpus (5)

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• Simulation of coarsening in two-phase systems with dissimilar mobilities
• On self similarity and coarsening rate of a convecting bicontinuous phase separating mixture: effect of the viscosity contrast
• Kinetics of coarsening have dramatic effects on the microstructure: self-similarity breakdown induced by viscosity contrast
• Numerical study of buoyancy induced arrest of viscous coarsening