Open AccessA numerical study of two-phase Stokes flow in an axisymmetric flow-focusing device
Author(s) -
Mads Jakob Herring Jensen,
Howard A. Stone,
Henrik Bruus
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
physics of fluids
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.188
H-Index - 180
eISSN - 1089-7666
pISSN - 1070-6631
DOI - 10.1063/1.2214461
Subject(s) - physics , mechanics , bubble , rotational symmetry , two phase flow , scaling , stokes flow , surface tension , radius , free surface , flow (mathematics) , classical mechanics , open channel flow , thread (computing) , geometry , thermodynamics , mechanical engineering , mathematics , computer security , computer science , engineering
We present a numerical investigation of the time-dependent dynamics of the creation of gas bubbles in an axisymmetric flow-focusing device. The liquid motion is treated as a Stokes flow, and using a generic framework we implement a second-order time-integration scheme and a free-surface model in MATLAB, which interfaces with the finite-element software FEMLAB. We derive scaling laws for the volume of a created bubble and for the gas flow rate, and confirm them numerically. Our results are consistent with existing experimental results by Garstecki et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 164501 2005, and predict a scaling yet to be observed: the bubble volume scales with the outlet channel radius to the power of 4 and the surface tension. Our axisymmetric simulations further show that the collapse of the gas thread before bubble snap-off is different from the recent experimental results. We suggest that this difference is caused by differences in geometry between experiments and the simulations. © 2006 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.2214461
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