Abstract
This article presents the breakup dynamics of the gas–liquid interface for Taylor bubble formation in a microfluidic flow-focusing device. Results show that the minimum diameter of the gaseous thread can be scaled with the remaining time before the final pinch-off during bubble formation as a power-law, where the exponent increases with the liquid viscosity. The surface profile evolves at different rates in the axial and radial directions due to the divergence in the surface tension during bubble breakup. The self-similar shapes are observed by normalizing the profiles of gas–iquid interface with an adjustable exponent that is related to the liquid viscosity. In addition, the shape of the gas–liquid interface becomes asymmetrical by the combined actions of the confinement of the channel wall and the squeezing of the liquid phase. The self-similar character of the azimuthal curvature of the gas–liquid interface is also observed. The results suggest that the evolution of the gas–liquid interface during bubble formation is driven by the interfacial force and posesses a self-similar shape, and the characteristic parameters for the similarity depends on the liquid viscosity.
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