Bursting of a soap film in a viscous environment

J.-F. Joanny and P.G. De Gennes

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 1987, vol. 147, issue 1, 238-255

Abstract: In a dense (polyhedral) O/W emulsion the oil droplets are separated by thin films of water. If at time t = 0, one film is broken locally, it shrinks and the zone of direct contact between the two oil droplets expands, with a growing radius R(t). The analog bursting of a soap films in air was studied long ago by Mysels and coworkers. But the presence of the viscous oil should slow down the process, and suppress the shock wave aspects which are often present in air. We assume first that the surfactant is strictly insoluble in oil and we discuss two regimes: (I) The water film is at the midplane of a slab of oil, bounded by solid walls: then we expect R(t)∼t12 even if non-linearities (due to the Langmuir equation of state of the monolayers) are incorporated. (II) With a very large slab of oil (or with two large oil droplets) we are led to R(t)∼34. Regime II would be realize in dense emulsions, but regime I is probably more interesting for fundamental studies on the rheology of monolayers. Finally, when the surfactant is slightly soluble in oil, we predict R(t)∼t34 in case I, and R(t)∼t in case II.

Date: 1987
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0378437187901087
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:147:y:1987:i:1:p:238-255

DOI: 10.1016/0378-4371(87)90108-7

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().