Mesoscale modelling of near-contact interactions for complex flowing interfaces. (10th June 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Montessori, A.; Lauricella, M.; Tirelli, N.; Succi, S.
• Is Part Of: Journal of fluid mechanics. Volume 872(2019)
• Page Start: 327
• Page End: 347
• Publication Date: 2019-06-10
• Subjects: microfluidics; Fluid mechanics -- Periodicals; 532.005
• DOI: 10.1017/jfm.2019.372
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0022-1120

Abstract

Abstract : We present a mesoscale kinetic model for multicomponent flows, augmented with a short range forcing term, aimed at describing the combined effect of surface tension and near-contact interactions operating at the fluid interface level. Such a mesoscale approach is shown to (i) accurately capture the complex dynamics of bouncing colliding droplets for different values of the main governing parameters, (ii) predict quantitatively the effective viscosity of dense emulsions in micro-channels and (iii) simulate the formation of the so-called soft flowing crystals in microfluidic focusers.