Constrained geometries in soap froth dynamics

Abstract

Soap froths as archetypal disordered cellular structures, exhibiting spatial and temporal evolution, have been predominantly studied in terms of their topological properties. Recently, constrained geometries in froth have attracted attention, since these arise both from existing or natural structure or, more usually, can be artificially configured. Using a direct simulation method, which retains detailed information on bubble (cell) mechanisms, we have investigated dynamics in 2D froths with various initial structures corresponding to controlled disorder. In particular, we examine the special case of a defect ring surrounding a central inclusion in a uniform froth, for different number of defects and ring radius. This geometry permits comparison with shell theory, as well as insight on dynamics of a virtual phase (as defined for persistence and non-equilibrium processes in general). It appears that defect location and pattern of inclusion in the virtual phase cause considerable variation in the evolutionary behaviour, leading to non-universal exponents for the phase dynamics. This is probably explained by the fact that the froth is still in the transient period over simulation time scales, rather than achieving the final stage of persistence. However, distinctive patterns of response can be identified for the different froth regions, despite system size limitations, with topological and other properties indicating that a quasi-equilibrium results.