Experimental Study on a Deformed Drop Moving through Viscous Media

Abstract

Observation is made of the shape of small drops (or bubbles) moving through viscous liquids with a constant speed. Main concern is to investigate how the deviation of the drop shape from a sphere depends on the physical quantities of fluids, the drop size and the drop velocity. It is shown that the deformation is governed mainly by the Weber number, the dimensionless quantity including the interfacial tension, as Taylor and Acrivos pointed out from the theoretical point of view. Also it is shown that their formula for the drop deformation is not valid if the ratio of Weber number to Reynolds number becomes larger than about 0.4.