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Updated: Mar 12, 2026

The Preparation of Electrohydrodynamic Bridges from Polar Dielectric Liquids
Published on: September 30, 2014
Dynamic response of a thin sessile drop of conductive liquid to an abruptly applied or removed electric field
L T Corson1, N J Mottram1, B R Duffy1
1Department of Mathematics & Statistics, University of Strathclyde, 26 Richmond Street, Glasgow G1 1XH, United Kingdom.
Abstract:
We consider, both theoretically and experimentally, a thin sessile drop of conductive liquid that rests on the lower plate of a parallel-plate capacitor. We derive analytical expressions for both the initial deformation and the relaxation dynamics of the drop as the electric field is either abruptly applied or abruptly removed, as functions of the geometrical, electrical, and material parameters, and investigate the ranges of validity of these expressions by comparison with full numerical simulations. These expressions provide a reasonable description of the experimentally measured dynamic response of a drop of conductive ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methyl imidazolium tetrafluoroborate.
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