Collodial particles at a range of fluid-fluid particles

The study of solid particles residing at fluid-fluid interfaces has become an established area in surface and colloid science recently experiencing a renaissance since around 2000. Particles at interfaces arise in many industrial products and processes like anti-foam formulations, crude oil emulsions, aerated foodstuffs and flotation. Although they act in many ways like traditional surfactant molecules, they offer distinct advantages also and the area is now multi-disciplinary involving research in the fundamental science and potential applications. In this Feature Article, a flavour of some of this interest is given based on recent work from our own group and includes the behaviour of particles at oil-water, air-water, oil-oil, air-oil and water-water interfaces. The materials capable of being prepared by assembling various kinds of particles at fluid interfaces include particle-stabilised emulsions, particle-stabilised aqueous and oil foams, dry liquids, liquid marbles and powdered emulsions

A model for soap film dynamics with evolving thickness

Previous research on animations of soap bubbles, films, and foams largely focuses on the motion and geometric shape of the bubble surface. These works neglect the evolution of the bubble’s thickness, which is normally responsible for visual phenomena like surface vortices, Newton’s interference patterns, capillary waves, and deformation-dependent rupturing of films in a foam. In this paper, we model these natural phenomena by introducing the film thickness as a reduced degree of freedom in the Navier-Stokes equations and deriving their equations of motion. We discretize the equations on a nonmanifold triangle mesh surface and couple it to an existing bubble solver. In doing so, we also introduce an incompressible fluid solver for 2.5D films and a novel advection algorithm for convecting fields across non-manifold surface junctions. Our simulations enhance state-of-the-art bubble solvers with additional effects caused by convection, rippling, draining, and evaporation of the thin film

Two-dimensional constriction flows of foams

International audienceThe flow of a quasi-two-dimensionalfoam through a constriction is described. The bubble velocity and elongation (texture) is compared between two sets of experiments and two different quasi-static simulations using Surface Evolver and Potts model. The simulations capture the effect of changing the degree of rounding of the corners of the flow geometry and the length of the constricted region. Validation of these simulation methods offers the possibility to easily vary many parameters of interest and to explore parameter ranges that are inaccessible to experiments such as low liquid fraction and slow velocity. Perspectives include characterisations of a 3D flow at the bubble scale

Simulation of bubbles

International audienceWe present a novel framework based on a continuous fluid simulator for general simulation of realistic bubbles, with which we can handle as many significant dynamic bubble effects as possible. To capture a very thin liquid film of bubbles, we have developed a regional level set method allowing multi-manifold interface tracking. Based on the definitions of regional distance and its five operators, the implementation of the regional level set method is very easy. An implicit surface of liquid film with arbitrary thickness can be reconstructed from the regional level set function. To overcome the numerical instability problem, we exploit a new semi-implicit surface tension model which is unconditionally stable and makes the simulation of surface tension dominated phenomena much more efficient. An approximated film thickness evolution model is proposed to control the bubble's lifecycle. All these new techniques combine into a general framework that can produce various realistic dynamic effects of bubbles

Microtomography-based numerical simulations of heat transfer and fluid flow through β-SiC open-cell foams for catalysis

β-SiC open-cell foams are promising materials for catalytic supports with improved heat and mass transfer at moderate pressure drops. In this work, 3-dimensional (3D) models of a 30 ppi (pores per inch) β-SiC open-cell foam were generated using X-ray microtomography data. The resulting foam models were then used for finite element analysis (FEA) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of heat transfer and fluid flow on the pore-scale. The FEA results demonstrate that (i) the overall effective thermal conductivity from direct simulations is comparable to the results estimated by experimental measurement, and are in the order of 10−1 W m−1 K−1 and (ii) thermal transport through fluid-saturated β-SiC foams depends on the solid-to-fluid conductivity ratio. By employing realistic foam models, pore-scale CFD simulations of fluid flows revealed the microscopic characteristics of laminar flow through open-cell foams. The anisotropic feature of realistic foam models promotes the axial and radial mixing of fluids in and after the foam element. The diffusion coefficient of laminar flow within foams was estimated at 10−4 m2 s−1, which is much larger than the molecular diffusion coefficient in a typical laminar flow in an open channel

Reconstruction of tomographic images of dry aqueous foams

WOS:000328011500007International audienceX-ray tomography offers the possibility to examine the local changes in the structure of a three-dimensional aqueous foam as it flows, allowing a better fundamental understanding of foam rheology and the validation of models. We present an automated algorithm that reconstructs a dry aqueous foam from such images. Our algorithm uses ImageJ to extract from an image the topology of the network of Plateau borders in the foam, and then analyses this network to re-create the films and then the bubbles, and equilibrates the structure in Surface Evolver. We validate our algorithm and demonstrate its precision by applying it to simulated foam structures and analysing the topology and geometry obtained. We then apply our algorithm to a sequence of images from an experiment in which a spherical bead falls under its own weight through a polydisperse dry foam. This allows us to describe the evolution of the foam's bubble volumes with time as well as the distribution of bubble pressure and the forces exerted on a falling sphere. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved