Volume 112, 1999

Introductory Lecture: Inertia, coarsening and fluid motion in binary mixtures

Abstract

Symmetric binary fluids, quenched into a regime of immiscibility, undergo phase separation by spinodal decomposition. In the late stages, the fluids are separated by sharply defined, but curved, interfaces: the resulting Laplace pressure drives fluid flow. Scaling ideas (of Siggia and of Furukawa) predict that, ultimately, this flow should become turbulent as inertial effects dominate over viscous ones. The physics here is complex: mesoscale simulation methods (such as lattice Boltzmann and dissipative particle dynamics) can play an essential role in its elucidation, as we describe. Likewise, it is a matter of experience that immiscible fluids will mix, on some lengthscale at least, if stirred vigorously enough. A scaling theory (of Doi and Ohta) predicts the dependence of a steady state domain size on shear rate, but assumes low Reynolds number (inertia is neglected). Our preliminary simulation results (three-dimensional, so far only on small systems) show little sign of the kind of steady state envisaged by Doi and Ohta; they raise instead the possibility of an oriented domain texture which can continue to coarsen until either inertial effects, or (in our simulations) finite size effects, come into play.

Article information

Article type
Paper

Faraday Discuss., 1999,112, 1-11

Introductory Lecture: Inertia, coarsening and fluid motion in binary mixtures

M. E. Cates, V. M. Kendon, P. Bladon and J-C. Desplat, Faraday Discuss., 1999, 112, 1 DOI: 10.1039/A903105G

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements