Abstract
The outstanding potential of absorbance imaging for the 3D shape analysis of dynamic scenes in multiphase flows is demonstrated and experimentally confirmed. The experimental procedures and workflows have been extended and applied to the 3D shape analysis of droplets moving in microchannels. Using this technique, the problem of measuring the thickness of the lubrication layer and the droplet geometry with sub-\(\upmu\)m resolution could be solved. The obtained data generally conform to models based on Bretherton’s theory and allow its extension even for non-circular microchannel geometries.
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Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge the support of this work by the German BMBF in the projects DiNaMiD (signature 0314491B) and BactoCat (signature 031A161A) and the Free State of Thuringia in the project oOPen (signature 2012 FE9011). Special thanks are given to Ken Brakke, the author of the Surface Evolver software, for providing the mean curvature algorithm that is applicable to measured data.
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Malsch, D., Kielpinski, M., Gleichmann, N. et al. Reconstructing the 3D shapes of droplets in glass microchannels with application to Bretherton’s problem. Exp Fluids 55, 1841 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00348-014-1841-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00348-014-1841-2