Numerical Study on Deformation and Interior Flow of a Droplet Suspended in Viscous Liquid under Steady Electric Fields

A model based on the volume of fluid (VOF) method and leaky dielectric theory is established to predict the deformation and internal flow of the droplet suspended in another vicious fluid under the influence of the electric field. Through coupling with hydrodynamics and electrostatics, the rate of deformation and internal flow of the single droplet are simulated and obtained under the different operating parameters. The calculated results show that the direction of deformation and internal flow depends on the physical properties of fluids. The numerical results are compared with Taylor's theory and experimental results by Torza et al. When the rate of deformation is small, the numerical results are consistent with theory and experimental results, and when the rate is large the numerical results are consistent with experimental results but are different from Taylor's theory. In addition, fluid viscosity hardly affects the deformation rate and mainly dominates the deformation velocity. For high viscosity droplet spends more time to attain the steady state. The conductivity ratio and permittivity ratio of two different liquids affect the direction of deformation. When fluid electric properties change, the charge distribution at the interface is various, which leads to the droplet different deformation shapes.