Asymptotics of a catenoid liquid bridge between two spherical particles with different radii and contact angles

Abstract

A liquid bridge between two neighboring particles is commonly observed in nature and various industrial processes. An accurate prediction of the profile of a liquid bridge is significantly important in particulate flows, while it is an analytically challenging task as well. In this paper, we develop an asymptotic solution for a catenoid liquid bridge profile, which is the minimal surface ensuring the minimum total surface energy. Our asymptotic solution is based on a rapid convergent predictor-corrector algorithm that considers different factors including boundary conditions, volume conservation, and geometrical relations while providing the relationship between the liquid bridge profile, bridge radius, half-filling angles, and creeping distances. Therefore, this asymptotic solution of the catenoid of the liquid bridge is applicable to general scenarios of any two neighboring particles of either equal or different sizes having identical or different contact angles. In order to validate the proposed asymptotic solution, we performed comprehensive experiments where the observed and predicted liquid bridge profiles and the resultant capillary forces from both the approaches are found closely matching. Moreover, we also investigate and report the influence of the radii ratio, contact angles, particle distances, and the liquid bridge volumes on its profiles.