Rotational motion of a droplet induced by interfacial tension

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2013 Jan;87(1):013009. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.87.013009. Epub 2013 Jan 9.

Abstract

Spontaneous rotation of a droplet induced by the Marangoni flow is analyzed in a two-dimensional system. The droplet with the small particle which supplies a surfactant at the interface is considered. We calculated flow field around the droplet using the Stokes equation and found that advective nonlinearity breaks symmetry for rotation. Theoretical calculation indicates that the droplet spontaneously rotates when the radius of the droplet is an appropriate size. The theoretical results were validated through comparison with the experiments.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms*
  • Computer Simulation
  • Models, Chemical*
  • Rheology / methods*
  • Rotation
  • Surface Tension*