Abstract
An encapsulated drop made of an outer liquid and an inner gas has recently become a subject of special interest. If the encapsulated drop can be simply and sequentially produced, it may improve functional liquid films for chemical reactors or light weight structural materials for spacecraft. The hydrodynamic mechanism of encapsulated drop formation in liquid-liquid-gas systems which has a relatively simple structure and an easy control system, is described experimentally and theoretically. The influence of gas flow rate and liquid physical properties on the size, the generation frequency and the thickness of encapsulated drops has been investigated to confirm the possibility of producing encapsulated drops in this system. Furthermore, the flow patterns around a moving encapsulated drop were studied numerically by solving the steady, incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. The accelerated motion, drag coefficient of the encapsulated drop and so on were also investigated.
