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Updated: Dec 28, 2025

Fabricating High-viscosity Droplets using Microfluidic Capillary Device with Phase-inversion Co-flow Structure
Published on: April 17, 2018
Influence of the viscosity and charge mobility on the shape deformation of critically charged droplets
E Giglio1, J Rangama1, S Guillous1
1Centre de Recherche sur les Ions, les Matériaux et la Photonique, Université de Caen Normandie, ENSICAEN, CEA, CNRS, 14000 Caen, France.
Abstract:
In this work, we model and simulate the shape evolution of critically charged droplets, from the initial spherical shape to the charge emission and back to the spherical shape. The shape deformation is described using the viscous correction for viscous potential flow model, which is a potential flow approximation of the Navier-Stokes equation for incompressible Newtonian fluids. The simulated shapes are compared to snapshots of experimentally observed drop deformations. We highlight the influence of the dimensionless viscosity and charge carrier mobility of the liquid on the shape evolution of droplets and discuss the observed trends. We give an explanation as to why the observed deformation pathways of positively and negatively charged pure water droplets differ and give a hint as to why negatively charged water droplets emit more charge during charge breakup than positively charged ones.
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