Universality in coalescence of polymeric fluid drops

Abstract

Coalescence of liquid droplets involves an interplay between capillary forces, viscous forces and inertial forces. Here, we unveil a universal temporal evolution of the neck radius during the coalescence of two polymeric drops. Through high speed imaging we demonstrate that drops of polyacrylamide (PAM), poly-vinyl alcohol (PVA), polyethylene oxide (PEO), polyethylene glycol (PEG) and xanthan gum (XG) depict a universal behavior $R/\sqrt{(}{\nu }_0\lambda )\sim (t/\lambda {)}^{0.36}(C/C^{\ast }{)}^{-0.83}$ over a dilute, semi-dilute and non-dilute range of concentrations. A linear Phan-Thein-Tanner viscoelastic model captures the temporal aspect of universality.

arXiv comment3 Figures. Soft Matter, 2020

References in corpus (9)

• Coalescence of Liquid Drops
• Inviscid coalescence of drops
• Coalescence of bubbles and drops in an outer fluid
• Viscous to Inertial Crossover in Liquid Drop Coalescence
• The inexorable resistance of inertia determines the initial regime of drop coalescence
• Coalescence of Liquid Drops: Different Models Versus Experiment
• Coalescence in low-viscosity liquids
• Approach and Coalescence of Liquid Drops in Air
• Viscous coalescence of droplets: a Lattice Boltzmann study

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Bridge evolution during the coalescence of immiscible droplets
• Rheocoalescence: Relaxation time through coalescence of droplets
• Coalescence of polymeric sessile drops on a partially wettable substrate
• Elasticity can affect droplet coalescence
• Coalescence of sessile aqueous droplets laden with surfactant
• Coalescence of viscoelastic sessile drops: the small and large contact angle limits
• When elasticity affects drop coalescence
• Electroosmotic flow of viscoelastic fluids in deformable microchannels